


His Butler, In the Name of Chastity

by Reyanth



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Asphyxiation (Druitt), BDSM (Vincent), BDSM elements (Druitt), Dominant Masochism, Exhibitionism, Foot Licking (Will), Light Masochism, M/M, Masturbation, Non-con (Will), Rough Sex, voyerism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2018-08-14 02:21:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7995130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reyanth/pseuds/Reyanth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bound by human wants and human needs, Ciel struggles to come to terms with his developing sexuality hindered by the lasting trauma of his childhood. Loathe to let Ciel sacrifice the purity of his body that promises an unsurpassed feast, Sebastian will sink as low as he must to protect the boy's chastity...</p><p>Pairings by chapter:<br/>1) Sebastian/Pluto+Ciel<br/>2) Sebastian/Ash+Ciel<br/>3) Sebastian/Druitt+Ciel - Sebastian solo+Ciel<br/>4) Sebastian/Soma+Ciel<br/>5) Sebastian/William+Ciel - Sebastian+Ciel<br/>6) Vincent/Sebastian+Ciel</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. His Butler, in the Name of Chastity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A deal between Sebastian and Ciel forces the demon's hand in putting on a little show. However, the earl's choice of partner for the exhibition goes against every fiber of Sebastian's being.
> 
> Sebastian/Pluto

Lau had drawn a vivid picture for him—one of boys his age coming into desires and sensations that most welcomed but that he feared and despised. At first, he had silently denied every word coming out of the despicable dealer’s mouth and at first that had been easy.

Taking it upon himself to provide a demonstration, Lau had paraded several different types of girls before Ciel and the Earl had been proud of his clear disaffection for such a display. He had even resisted the urge to shuck off their touches and soft kisses as they each tried to pry a reaction from him. Some had stalked off in complaint that he was obviously still a child while others had winked and promised to try again in a year or so.

Lau was undaunted.

Clearly, he still had a card up his sleeve and it emerged from a closed door in the form of a dark young man clad in what Ciel supposed was a sexy parody of formal attire. The open, unbuttoned shirt and form-fitting jacket were offset with a thin, red silk tie that hung down below the scandalously low waist-line of pants made of some impossible material that clung to well-made thighs like liquid made solid…

Only when Lau’s bold touch to his groin sent a thrill of electricity up to his belly did Ciel realize he had fallen prey to this blatant exploit of a masculine figure in peak condition. One by one, Lau’s fingers counted their passage along his erection until his loosely closed fist lingered just out of contact. Ciel’s harsh breathing came to his ears in retrospect and the severe contraction of every muscle in his body registered as pain only when the subtle sense of pleasure faded.

Ever-observant, Lau removed the arms draped about Ciel and disengaged himself without any further risk of contact. He sent the model packing with a glance and sank casually into an armchair at a comfortable distance from the struggling Earl.

“You have a long, lonely road ahead of you, Earl Phantomhive,” Lau noted as his favorite plaything slipped sensually into his lap and offered him a fresh pipe. “I do hope that butler of yours can solve the problem.”

Lau’s accuracy in assessing Ciel’s trauma and ensuing dilemma was regrettably astute. Perhaps if it had not been shoved in his face, Ciel might not have awakened so swiftly to the hormonal fluctuations beginning to change his perceptions of the world, but now that he had he was in a difficult situation.

Apparently, his attraction was not only limited to the male gender, but almost solely to Sebastian. It was hardly a surprise. With such a splendid specimen by his side at all times, why would he even be swayed by another human being? Of course, there-in lay the true cause for self-loathing, for Sebastian was a creature of evil and darkness, a demon crawling among the filth and carrion of this world. To love him was inconceivable—to desire him was… To desire such a low and obscene being… What did that make Ciel?

Either way, he could never abide to be touched, nor would Sebastian ever allow it. He knew the demon savored the purity of his flesh as much as the degradation of his soul. Even if he might have been able to overcome his complex towards sexual contact with Sebastian to guide him, nothing short of a direct order would result in the demon’s compliance.

Ciel told himself he didn’t care that it would take an order for Sebastian to see to such needs, only that he couldn’t bear to lower himself to such an emotionless agreement for the sake of physical pleasure. Release he could achieve by himself.

Or so he thought. It would seem he needed Sebastian for that, too.

Lately, he had been hard-pressed to control his reaction to Sebastian’s touch while dressing or bathing. Those few times when the demon had swept him up in a close embrace to rescue him from some calamity or other, it was the scent and sensation of “butler” that surrounded him and made his body tingle and warm.

However, alone at night, he could hardly recall that sensation and saw in his mind’s eye only the cold, cruelly laughing demon that awaited his death with barely suppressed glee and ravenous desire. There would be no succor in the realm of imagination.

At last, the solution came to him after weeks of discomfort which had extended into months of torture. His body was a traitor and he needed something he could neither seek from another nor—apparently—give to himself without Sebastian’s aid.

“Pluto really loves Sebastian’s baths,” observed Mey Rin in hushed awe, gazing out the window in obvious jealousy even as shame blossomed in her cheeks. “Young Master, you shouldn’t watch!”

Ciel had rolled his eyes and defied her by following up his casual glance with a move to the window. He wasn’t about to take orders from a ma-

Sopping hair draped haphazardly about his attractive face, Pluto’s dusky lips hung open; his throat was distended in a rapturous arch of the neck, and his half-lidded eyes fluttered then squeezed tightly closed. His full, thick length stuck straight up in the air for all to see. What could not be seen so clearly, however, was Sebastian’s hands.

So sickened was his expression that Ciel immediately knew his hands—arms buried to the elbows under soap and water beneath the wriggling humanoid mutt—were furiously scrubbing a part of the body both undesirable and—judging by Pluto’s blatant ecstasy—capable of exceedingly pleasurable sensation. The bereft expression the mutt wore when Sebastian withdrew and ordered him in no uncertain terms to “STAY,” was so drastic that Ciel began to feel sorry for him.

While Sebastian disappeared from view for quite some time, Ciel gazed down upon Pluto. He was rather used to that naked form as a daily feature of the manor and had never been disturbed by it, having recognized the demon hound for what he was from the get-go. However, if he allowed himself to consider aesthetics, it was a rather pleasing human form—particularly when gripped with lust. The response had been more subtle than when Sebastian touched or held him, but Ciel had risen to the bait, so to speak.

He tested himself, gazing down on the figure lying prone in a bath slowly losing its suds. Canine whines floated up to Ciel’s ears despite the distance and the struggle was clear even from afar. He desperately wanted to pursue the object of his desire but he had been ordered to stay and the punishment for disobeying was beyond consideration. Ciel pressed a hand to the window and traced the front of his shorts with the other, experimentally caressing the slight jut of his length trapped within. Little by little, he increased the pressure, but it wasn’t until his imagination joined the party that he felt that telling tingle of pleasure.

Remembering that it was Sebastian’s touch—Sebastian’s long, elegant fingers and immaculately groomed nails scraping against the hound’s sensitive flesh… inside? Surely not… but if he did…

“Y-Young Master? I’m terribly sorry! I’ll go down and clean everything up, right away!” Mey Rin announced, escaping the room in a destructive dervish.

Only at the intrusion to his lewd fantasy did Ciel realized he had groaned aloud. Clearing the tray behind him, blind-as-a-bat-Mey-Rin had not recognized his actions and he had utterly forgotten her presence in giving voice to his appreciation.

She needn’t have bothered rushing down the stairs—and probably almost breaking her neck in the process. With Sebastian’s absence and the fading of memory and sensation, Pluto’s desire had dwindled and the dog had taken on a thoroughly annoyed expression. He almost stepped foot out of the bath but froze before his toe touched the ground in recollection of the punishment he had received last time he broke the order to stay.

With this, Sebastian returned, coldly toweled him off, and sent him scampering into the house where he couldn’t get dirty again just yet. The commotion as he plowed into a racing Mey Rin was noisy enough to give Ciel a headache and his own lust swiftly dissipated.

His plans, however, began to take form.

*

Draped far too casually in a periwinkle silk robe that lay open, baring far too much skin, Ciel’s full, bored gaze was trained upon the mutt between his legs. Hunched over on his knees—naked as ever in his human form—Pluto was dragging his crotch indecently back and forth atop Ciel’s shin even as he licked the subtle round of the boy’s thigh.

Disgusting.

Utterly… Thoroughly… Inconceivably….

“Here boy.”

The mildly muttered words were spoken as Ciel crunched his under-formed abdominal muscles to reach for the mutt’s chin. He raised Pluto’s face, forcing the hound to meet his gaze. Even to a dog it was disconcerting and Pluto cowered—but as of yet, he was not subject to the Earl’s displeasure. In fact, Ciel’s expression was soft, almost pitying.

So was his boyish manhood. What was the child playing at?

Endeavoring to rectify this very fact, Ciel drew Pluto’s face to his crotch. “Go on,” he said, giving exceedingly rare permission involving the licking of body parts. In retrospect, he tightened his grip on the mutt’s chin until it was clearly painful, his gaze sharp and commanding. “No biting.”

An enthusiastic guttural whine was his response and Ciel flopped back on his mountain of pillows, satisfied. He crossed his arms behind his head and relaxed into the sensation of the tongue’s caress to his growing appendage. At last, he turned his eyes upon the shuddering butler in the doorway, waiting with the usual sadistic amusement to see what his latest ploy would arouse from a demon who was usually unshakeable.

“This will not do,” hissed Sebastian.

Judging by the devious grin that formed in reaction, Ciel knew, all right. He knew exactly what Sebastian expected of him in terms of their contract, and he intended to use that here and now to get something he wanted. Very well.

Ciel may be too young for certain sexual exploits but he was perfectly capable of enjoying direct stimulation, and while Pluto’s technique may be lacking, his enthusiasm was admirable. Even the young earl’s composure took a hit. His cheeks flushed beauteously and his breath grew more ragged as his pupils became engorged.

With that challenging stare and blatant exhibitionism, Sebastian recognized that there was a purpose to this exercise—one intended to rile him up—and he was thus able to disengage from his distaste of the implied outcome so as not to indulge the as-yet hidden ulterior motive. Idly, he wondered if this was his Lord’s first erection… Probably not, but he was willing to bet it was the first time he had allowed himself to become affected by the caress of another. Likely, he had never even experimented by his own hand.

As much as Sebastian deplored the concept of Ciel actually becoming tainted with sexual activity, he could not deny the incredible rush that filled him at that taboo vision of innocent rapture. For just one instant he was tempted to sacrifice one feast in favor of another... but the thought passed without incident.

Clearly, Sebastian’s quick recovery from discomposure was not among Ciel’s expectations. As the butler let a placating smile creep across his lips and inclined his head ever so slightly in feigned deference to his Master’s will, Ciel’s expression grew aggravated.

“Stop,” he breathed.

Poor, pathetic Pluto. Here, his Master was letting him lick and lick and lick and lick and he could taste all the wonderful salts and sniff all the delicious fragrances that were usually forbidden to his heightened senses, and he had to stop? Surely not. He’d misheard. That word meant something else like—

“Damn you, you stupid mutt, I said stop!”

Heaving for breath as his diaphragm was crushed in reaching down to drag Pluto’s head up by the hair, Ciel’s anger melted strangely to compassion in response to the wide-eyed disappointment every pet dog learned to master. A whimper cemented the ploy and the boy’s tearing grip dissolved into a gentle, apologetic caress.

“Good boy, Plu,” he said gently—still short of breath and pink in the cheeks. “I promise you can have a treat soon.”

Barking happily at the “T” word, Pluto bounded up the bed and made to lick Ciel’s face. The panic that came over his Lord’s elegant young features was almost too hilarious for Sebastian to withstand.

That the tongue that had just slathered his manhood, bathed his balls, and tasted his anus should make contact with his face was beyond Ciel’s comprehension. Were it not for the fact that Sebastian valued what remained of his Lord’s purity above all else, he might not have intervened.

Dashing forward, he rescued his Lord from shame, securing the hound from behind and calming him with a simple caress of glove to lily white skin. Ciel was choked for a moment—both relieved and deploring the urge to express his gratitude, but his recovery came swifter than Sebastian had anticipated.

“That will do nicely,” he said. “For a start…”

Sebastian frowned at the inference but soon his eyes widened in shock as he took in the devouring gaze roaming his current paired positioning. This nefarious child was far more twisted and perverted than even he had ever imagined.

“I vow to you, demon, I will never sacrifice my chastity to another living being,” Ciel swore suddenly, extending his right hand as if to make an order. The magic circle representing their contract seemed to glint within his right eye, the left just as intense with the heat of his arousal and fierce sincerity. “In return, you will see to my satisfaction in other ways.”

Having already seen beyond the ruse to where this was going, Sebastian played along anyway. “My Lord… To disport yourself with a demon such as myself would instill a taint far beyond that of any mortal thievery of your treasured virginity.”

Ciel’s eyes burned feverishly and he shuddered. Doubtless, the memories of pedophiles despoiling his caged body with their eyes invaded his skin and left him physically ill. The evidence was in the sudden shriveling of what had been a rather admirable erection for one so young.

No, Ciel would never willingly part with his virginity—not for any mortal, nor any demon, nor any other being under heaven or earth. This little display of his was the closest he would ever come—no pun intended.

The demon hound was a pawn under his control; a creature that was bound by his orders and unworthy of his concern. Allowing the mutt to go even this far was sacrifice enough in itself but worth it—in Ciel’s convoluted way of thinking—in order to bind Sebastian to this new facet of their contract.

Humans were sad creatures, truly—unable to survive beyond puberty without engaging in pleasurable actions for the sake of sexual release. Sebastian had seen those who tried to abstain even from self-satisfaction—they usually turned out more debauched than the rest at the first hint of stimulation.

So Ciel recognized this human flaw in himself and had formed a plan to counter it while protecting the chastity of his body and ensuring—in turn—that this particular purity would remain a delicacy for Sebastian’s eventual consumption; a delectably sweet contrast to the potent taint of his soul. Unfortunately, he intended to make Sebastian suffer for that most delicious recipe. Hence, the dog.

“Sebastian, I order you to reward Pluto—with the most intense sexual pleasure he will ever know.”

Sighing, Sebastian turned his gaze to the silver-white hair and alabaster skin of the mutt in his arms. If not for the uncouth stench that spelled D.O.G. to his heightened senses, he might have been able to fantasize that he held in his arms a lovely white feline—all soft paws, teasing claws, and arching back. There was no fantasy here, though. In addition to the stench, the deplorable whining, gruffling, and stupidly inquiring noises of the canine race met Sebastian’s ears in response to the soft touch of his hands to humanoid planes of muscles and sensitive, pliable nipples. This would be no walk in the park.

“Yes, My Lord.”

*

Sebastian understood him to the depths of his soul. Every nuance of his desire was now open to the demon’s detailed scrutiny. His expectations, his longing, his reasoning, and his self-loathing were all prey.

As a result, the display he was treated to catered to his every wish both open and hidden, whether he recognized or denied it. Sebastian was nothing if not thorough.

Having accepted the order, recognized his own reluctance for the task, and shed it under the demands of his contract, Sebastian set to with admirable alacrity. It pleased Ciel in ways unrelated to the darkly beautiful show set before him. Knowing that the demon bowed to his will against his very nature—to rut with a canine!—filled the boy with a new flavor of desire even as he took in the sight of his gorgeous butler and the innocently indecent Pluto. A small part of him was even pleased to grant this reward to the hound who guarded his manor and provided unsurpassed amusement on occasion when certain undesired guests thought to intrude. Only Ciel could order Sebastian to bestow this most longed-for treat upon the hound. Only his order could ever make it possible.

He never bothered to take into account that Pluto was essentially an animal, for Sebastian was even less—they both were, in fact. Demons. Despicable.

That aside, there was plenty of other avenues to the shame in him as he devoured the scene of Sebastian’s gloved fingers lightly tracing the ridges of Pluto’s muscles, slowly rounding a peaked pink nipple, and then innocently smoothing down the raised hairs on a forearm braced besideCiel’s hip. The demon’s gaze alternated between the subject of his touch and the boy who avidly observed it. Intense red eyes posed a challenge not to turn away for a moment—to face the disgraceful humanity of his own desire—as cold lips curved into a teasing smile that disappeared behind a pale, trembling shoulder.

Ciel startled as the hound let out a whimper prompted by a nip of teeth to his flesh. The flare of desire in those demonic red eyes provoked a sympathetic rush of sensation to Ciel’s crotch. He looked down at himself, shocked by how quickly he was able to recover and surpass his earlier arousal, and embarrassed at his very need for this farce.

“This is what you wanted… is it not? My Lord?” asked Sebastian. His voice was eroticism itself and Ciel’s gaze instantly returned to the sight before him, bound to the spot where Sebastian now used his tongue to soothe the bite he had just inflicted, causing Pluto to pant lusciously. The beast was true to his nature and his hips began to gyrate in reaction to the base needs of his body. In answer, Sebastian looked down with almost comical surprise. Resignedly, he reached down to grip the too-eager appendage and apply an appropriate counter-rhythm, barely suppressing a sigh. “My word. This won’t do… My Lord, I do hope that having instigated this travesty, you will overcome your belated sense of indignity and endeavor to enjoy the show.”

Shifting his hold, Sebastian pulled the hound up until they were both upright on their knees and then vigorously worked the formidable length of Pluto’s erection until he whimpered, panted, and then a soft growl formed low in his throat. At that point, Sebastian froze. His expression rippled with something Ciel couldn’t quite identify, and he reached down with the hand restraining his subject to peel the glove off his working hand. This accomplished, he speared Ciel with his eyes and then jerked the hound to a howling peak of pleasure that jettisoned gooey white fluid over the Earl’s thighs.

Ciel twitched in irrational fear as it hit him but his abdomen rippled in sympathy with the spasms that affected Pluto and even the splash of semen on his skin lit a sensation of tactile pleasure that brought his erection to hand without conscious thought. Staring at Pluto’s slackening expression and the relaxation that settled into muscles that had been viciously taut only moments ago, he slowly caressed himself.

Honestly, Ciel was disappointed that it was over so soon, especially as he had only just come to terms with the need to touch himself and begun to smother the embarrassment of doing so at all, let alone under Sebastian’s judgmental gaze. He needn’t have been.

“The most intense sexual pleasure he will ever know,” Sebastian recited. He eyes were shadowed and his lips hidden behind Pluto’s shoulder. Slowly, he lifted his face, taking his time to observe the defiling splash of semen, Ciel’s amateurish hold on his own stiff flesh, and his gormlessly open-mouthed interest in the erotic display. “Was it not? My Lord, you have chosen a rather inferior specimen for the task but a butler of the Phantomive household who could not achieve this much would not be worth his salt. Even so, we shall have to work up to it, I’m afraid.”

*

That this arrogant child gifted with true class and surpassing sense for aesthetics could truly be enamored of such a dirty beast was unthinkable. Therefore, his choice of partner for Sebastian came down to two things. First, must simply be a lack of aversion to the hound’s touch—essential particularly in the first stage of this particular trap. Second—and this was the part that grated every nerve and fiber of Sebastian’s vastly evil being—was that he recognized Sebastian’s loathing of dogs and relished the unfettered power to force his servant into the utmost demeaning of actions. That Sebastian would rather scrub off an entire layer or two of skin after this than live with the crawling sensation that would doubtless pervade every inch of him served only to heighten the boy’s amusement, and perhaps even his desire. Oh yes, this was a soul so vilely tainted it was singularly irresistible. That was the one thought that sustained Sebastian as he submersed himself in this loathsome charade.

To fulfill his Lord’s tall order, he would first need to divest the mutt of several lesser orgasms, allowing him to provoke a final build to pleasure that would defy release as a physical impossibility until a lack of release proved even more impossible. For this, he would need to employ a variety of techniques. Of course, what was most essential was the visual execution. Whether or not Ciel was physically capable of ejaculation just yet was immaterial. If that was what his Lord required, then that was what Sebastian would achieve—and for that, he would need to put on a show of surpassing eroticism. The delectable cherry—so to speak—balanced precariously on the whipped peak of this particular desert… Yes, Sebastian knew what would be required of him for this daunting task…

In the meantime…

Pluto was surprisingly compliant, lying placidly on his back beside Ciel as Sebastian’s palms kneaded the ever-so-slightly fleshy planes of his stomach. Converting the massage to a light rub, Sebastian almost relished the appreciation his actions received. There was sexual pleasure to be sure—Pluto was already irrevocably stiff again—but there was also emotional pleasure and the thrill of reward to one’s devotion in the moronic mutt’s chuffed expression. He raked his nails just barely over the flesh on the descent of his palms and watched those clumsy hands contract in a parody of flexing claws.

Oh dear, he had gotten a little carried away playing with the stupid animal. Ciel was starting to take on a bored expression. How uncharacteristically careless of him.

Smirking at the boy from Pluto’s crotch, he ducked beneath the mutt to land a swipe of the tongue at the puckered entrance he knew for a fact was immaculately clean thanks to his own sacrificial efforts. Even as he tuned out the moans and groans of his subject and dragged his tongue up between testicles and through a soft patch of curls to flick at the base of a rock-solid cock, he gazed up at his Lord and wondered if the boy was imagining Sebastian’s actions upon his own flesh. Perhaps unconsciously, his fingers traced an identical trail to that Sebastian had just blazed; his other hand resting on his hip in parody of the one that restrained Pluto.

Almost demurely, Sebastian lidded his gaze and swiped Pluto’s length with a long lick that lingered at the tip, pulsing gently there before flicking up as his eyes opened and burned into Ciel’s smoldering, mismatched orbs. He closed his lips about the tip, sucked lightly, then applied his tongue, slid down a little further, and gave his efforts over to suction and friction.

The second orgasm provoked a groan of approval from Ciel. The boy didn’t even flinch as Pluto happily landed a companionable lick on his cheek, coming down from the pleasurable high. Sebastian didn’t give him much time to wallow, instantly intensifying his efforts. He relaxed his throat and swallowed the tip of Pluto’s cock, massaging it with the muscles there even as he began to rub the hound’s entrance with gentle fingers. After a short while of this, he reverted to suction, speed, and pressure, setting into motion a third orgasm that incited the earl to vigorous pounding of his own aching arousal. By the time, Sebastian had his third finger inside Pluto’s languidly relaxed body—still awash in the aftermath of three intense orgasms—the boy was shaking all over, flushed and wide-eyed as his body tried to emulate the phenomenon.

“Se-Sebastian…” he moaned, piteously.

Whether he was calling out the name of that he desired, begging for help, or simply unable to vocalize any other details of his need, not even the demon could determine. He was utterly delectable in that moment, though. Every mote of him was open to be read. Had Sebastian decided his contract fulfilled and moved to devour him that instant, he would have gladly conceded. He had no idea of the further heights of sensation he would reach before Sebastian was through with him tonight.

*

Ciel panted, his cheek smushed against a pillow, his fringe pasted to his forehead with a light layer of sweat, and his eyes still glued to Sebastian. Heat and cold had assaulted him all at once like a fever that swept through him so rapidly it erupted through his skin. It had felt good, for sure, but there had also been a hint of pain in that burst of feeling. His groin still tingled. He tore his eyes from the demon couple for long enough to observe that he was still upright, if not quite as rigid as he had been moments ago.

There was no question of calling an end to the exercise, even though he had achieved his goal of a first orgasm. Sebastian was still ruthlessly at work, pumping his fingers in and out of Pluto’s ass even as he continued to suckle at the hound’s fourth erection, causing the demon hound to shake his head in a physical manifestation of the simplistic confusion between pain and pleasure, pain and pleasure, good and bad, good, good, good, and not so… Suddenly he jerked, his eyelids open to their fullest and a high-pitched whine issuing from the back of his throat. Then he flopped down to the bed, causing the mattress to quake under Ciel who was lazily running his fingers over a rapidly renewing hardness.

“Take him,” he ordered.

“How would you like it, My Lord?” Sebastian asked mildly, letting his fingers slip from the hound’s ass and running them up along the quivering cock that jutted unerringly toward the ceiling yet again.

Ciel’s lips quirked but he fought the impulse, battling Sebastian’s eager expression, just daring him to say it. Virgin he may be, but his knowledge of debauchery was unequalled among his age-group.

“Doggy style,” he specified, finally letting the grin take control of his lips. It faded slowly as he clenched his fist tight about his aching cock and stroked one, twice, three times, as he considered. “Over me.”

*

“Yes, My Lord.”

My, how fast the boy overcame his shyness. No less was to be expected of the one Sebastian served with all of his will and might, but he had expected Ciel to shy from all potential physical contact. Apparently his tolerance of Pluto’s touch went beyond Sebastian’s expectations.

How often had the mutt kneeled at his side, leaning into an unconscious stroke as the Earl’s thoughts ran rife? How many times had his chin rested upon a knee as he gazed up at an un-attending Master busy with pen or knife and fork? How frequently had Sebastian shooed the mutt from Ciel’s bed before the proper young man woke to find the fiend snuggled up to various body parts without permission?

Less than human, loyal to a fault, and unobtrusively familiar, this creature had somehow succeeded in earning a degree of trust even Sebastian had deemed impossible for any but himself. Perhaps there was more merit to this dog than he had yet gleaned. Still—too much comfort would be problematic. Ciel must always fear violation.

This was a feat that could be achieved with far too much ease, Sebastian mused.

This inner monologue continued as Sebastian positioned the trembling Pluto beside Ciel’s knees and ordered him to sit and stay. The butler then rose from the bed and stood straight and proud before his Lord. Knowing how the moonlight caressed his form, he tugged formally at his jacket cuffs to pull the sleeves straight, then extended both arms straight down and let the garment fall from his body with a slight shrug of the shoulders. Removing his remaining glove with his teeth, he then flicked each button of his immaculate white shirt, pausing for effect as he unlocked the central region of his chest. When the shirt hung open, he let his fingers graze down his belly until his nails brushed the waistline of his trousers, perfectly balanced on the very slight curve of his hips. He turned his face aside and dropped the glove from his lips, then closed his eyes and tilted his head back as he let his fingers brush the bulge that had begun to form with the first glorious flushing of Ciel’s cheeks.

He may not enjoy laying with a hound but Pluto’s human form was not unattractive, and seeing the Lord he had devoted himself to shudder and sweat in the throws of first orgasm was enough to bring even Sebastian to full arousal. Having committed himself to this course, what kind of butler would he be if he couldn’t perform the most essential duty?

With all of the showmanship he possessed, he unwrapped the parcel upon which his Lord’s eyes were trained—revealing his penchant for forgoing underwear in favor of a perfect body line—and coaxed his significant manhood from its confines, letting its weight rest in his open palm. Ciel’s eyes feasted and he bit his lips, the speed of his stroking increasing with candid honesty.

It would never be, but there was no doubt that Ciel wanted him. He let that knowledge suffuse him as he descended upon the mattress, splaying his knees to either side of Ciel’s short, skinny legs and wrapping an arm about Pluto’s waist to pull him between them.

Humans wanted him. Desperately. Achingly. Despairingly. It was a fact as obvious as the fact that humans breathed. Women were consumed by fantasies of his attention—or of his prowess if they were of the more corrupted variety—while men found themselves gazing at his lips, his eyes, or his jaw-line with passing fancy—some blatantly turning ravishing looks upon body parts located in his lower vicinity. Some humans he had lain with under orders; others he had lain with as a result of orders. Never once had he desired a human of his own volition or pleasured one for his own purposes. Now, he wondered if, under different circumstances, Ciel might have become the exception.

He saw now that puberty had crept upon them all unknowing. This boy was beyond ripe—his body catching up to the rapid and unforgiving maturing of his mind.

The boy consciously suppressed his harsh breathing in anticipation as Sebastian settled his demon hound lover overhead, guiding Pluto to brace his elbows against the wall. The demon then reached down and grasped his Lord’s elbow, eliciting a gasp at the touch. He smoothly tugged Ciel to an angle at which the view would not be blocked by the body looming over him. He wanted every stroke, every undulation, and every nuance of his own expression to be taken in by those wide, luminous, mismatched eyes.

“The most intense sexual pleasure he will ever know,” promised Sebastian once more, bracing himself and sliding his rigid flesh into alignment. He lightly ran his fingers under the length and along the silky-soft skin below Pluto’s anus, cupping the drooping, engorged balls and rolling them even as he continued to reach upward, clenching the muscles of his open palm about the underside of Pluto’s taught, twitching arousal.

Slamming home into the hot, fit body that so yearned for him, for once he let himself revel in every ounce of sensation and gave himself over to pleasure.

*

Raven hair swayed vigorously, bushing unearthly, pale skin in its passage. Ragged breaths peaked and hitched like waves battering a hull in stormed-tossed seas. Lids and brows crinkled and smoothed like snapping sails above tightly shuttered eyes that creaked open occasionally only to clench shut once more to prevent sensory overload.

Above Ciel, a pair of demons writhed, clashed, and bonded on a level of elevated sensation he couldn’t even fathom. Not of this world, they were capable of experiencing every scent, sound, sight, touch, and taste in ways no human could know. Pluto was beyond man or dog—a quivering mass of overarching pleasure tempered with pain.

Sebastian was… Never had Ciel thought to observe his stoic, flawless butler engage in anything more pleasurable than a passing amusement. Anything beyond that would be indecent.

He saw it now in Sebastian’s face—a storm of ecstasy so violent it stripped away all of the pretense of elegance and perfection the demon veiled his true self in and bared the vicious truth of a being so greedy and vicious in pursuit of its own vile desires, it devoted years of so-called service and obedience toward the end of one glorious, rapturous feast. Ciel was the prize at the end of that long, torturous wait, and for the first time—frozen in awe and shock—he saw himself for the meal he was to become.

Perhaps the demon smelled his terror, for his furious motion ceased and he leaned heavily upon the heaving back of his partner. After a time, he slowly levered himself upright, his expression both controlled again and somewhat slack as he gazed down at Ciel. He licked his lips—but not in hunger; he did it because they were dry with exertion. Sweat trickled down his nose, dripping passed the corner of his mouth. He caught a drop with his tongue.

Smiling at Ciel, he then turned his focus back on the oddly patient Pluto—seemingly subject to Sebastian’s every whim be it to continue fucking him senseless or to stop and let him fall unconscious then and there—and resumed a slow rock, pushing Pluto securely against the wall with the base of his palm against a slim buttocks so the hound would no longer rock with him as he withdrew slowly and drove deeply back into the welcoming sheath. Ciel was so captivated—first by the demon hound’s overwhelming submission and the aura of bliss he exuded, then by the intense satisfaction in Sebastian’s expression and efficient motion—that he only belatedly realized the rising growl was not coming from Pluto, but from Sebastian himself.

Above Ciel, Pluto began to shudder uncontrollably. His elbows slipped and Sebastian surged forward, holding him up under the chest. Leaning forward so, the angle of their rutting grew more dramatic, Sebastian’s hips pistoning upward as the stunned hound arched violently, continuing to convulse with an orgasm drawn out and intensified by the fact that he was almost dry from cumming so many times already.

Witnessing the violent frenzy that consumed the bodies locked in passion above him, Ciel felt a similar experience take over his body. He expected another dry orgasm and gave himself over to it as his small frame trembled with trapped pressure. One hand jerked desperately between his legs while the other ground against his temple. His vision blurred as he tried to keep his eyes wide open, not to miss an instant of Sebastian during this incredible upheaval of the world.

The concentration that had subsumed the demon’s expression gave way and his lips parted almost delicately, emitting a soft gasp that seemed to echo in Ciel’s ears. As Sebastian’s pupils dilated in parody of his engorged cock releasing its load into a collapsing Pluto, Ciel was seized in the grip of an eclipsing euphoria. Unlike the quaking pleasure of earlier, this one burst was an intense release that robbed him of all other senses for an indeterminate length of time.

Subsequent tremors rocked his frame as memories assaulted him. A vicious, evil demon… Hands grabbing, eyes devouring… A cage…

Desirable images warred with scarring memories. Adoring Pluto… Worshipful Viscount… Rescuing Sebastian… Devouring demon… Writhing lovers…

When he could feel again, it was the weight of the unconscious mutt that first registered. His breath was a cacophony to his own ears and he was too damned hot.

“Get him off me,” he gasped.

“Yes… My Lord…”

That ragged gasp was so uncharacteristic that Ciel furiously blinked spots from his eyes and forced his vision to focus upon Sebastian. The demon’s expression was soft and unguarded, even as he hauled Pluto to one side—not at all like the vision of gluttony he vaguely recalled.

Still partially numb and fuzzy, and now very warm and comfortable, Ciel felt strangely happy; it was an unfamiliar feeling to him and he disliked it a great deal.

“Sleep here, beside me,” he muttered, his tongue thick with a cloying lethargy that spread through him so suddenly he couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore.

“Yes, My Lord,” he heard on a sigh, as a thump shook the mattress beside him and a warm weight settled over his waist.

*

Sebastian pried one eye open—the one not buried in a pillow—and peered through a fall of his own lank, sweaty hair to the boy sleeping so soundly at his side. He had somewhat overdone it in unleashing the full demonic relish of his satisfaction. Eternal fear of physicality was one thing, but he had been in danger of shattering the boy’s fragile sanity with that glimpse of the stark, horrifying truth of what lay ahead. The least he could do was to see to Ciel’s comfort now, even if it meant sleeping beside that retched, snoring… somewhat adorable… fool of a hound.


	2. And if You Fall as Lucifer Fell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sentenced to three days in service to Ciel Phantomhive in penance for putting the young earl in danger, Ash Landers is swept up into a fiery forbidden tango.
> 
> Sebastian/Ash

_There, out in the darkness_  
_A fugitive running_  
_Fallen from God_  
_Fallen from grace_  
_God be my witness_  
_I never shall yield_  
_Till we come face to face_  
_Till we come face to face_

An exquisite contradiction of shining purity and burnished darkness, Ciel Phantomhive was the ultimate supper. He was also an endless font of entertainment.

Since forcing Sebastian upon the stupid hound in an exhibition unfit for even the lowliest of perverts, the earl had conveniently endeavored to forget all about it. He even went so far as to question Sebastian before the staff as to why the mutt was following him around the manor whimpering and pawing instead of creating havoc as he was generally wont to do.

He had not asked for a repeat performance, nor hinted at such a desire. He would not, for that was the quality of his pride. Until he could no longer bear the desire that wallowed deep within him—and that time would assuredly come again—he would tame it with bit and lash.

So it was that he went about the work of his most beloved queen. Apprehending criminals who preyed upon the innocent, criminals who preyed upon criminals, and all manner of creatures from all manner of realms—and watching the world burn if it was what Her Majesty specified.

Thus, it was not an unusual situation for Sebastian to return from an errand to find Ciel face down in a fallen pile of drapes, pinned beneath a lunatic dressed as the saddened pierrot. Painted all over in the black and white of a chess board, the renowned fugitive whispered lewd jokes into the earl’s tiny, delicate ears.

Sebastian had heard them from the entrance to the manor and fumed. Where were the staff? How could they let such a deranged creature so close to Sebastian’s prized… lord? What was it even doing here when it had last been reported as heading toward Scotland?

It was unbefitting of an experienced butler to run. More importantly, neither Ciel’s life nor the bodily innocence Sebastian so cherished were in any immediate danger as yet, so he stalked through the mansion with deadly feline grace, imagining what might be the best punishment for the maddened clown whose modus operandi he recognized in those awful whispered jests that came clearly to Sebastian’s abominable ears and would make any clown weep for shame.

However, as he drew nearer to the study his target inhabited, the butler became aware of another sound, less grating and lewd than the pierrot’s shrill laughter at his own terrible jokes; footsteps as soft as feathers and the slightest scrape of a blade leaving its sheath.

Obsessive cleanliness had its own scent and Sebastian knew it as “Ash.” This particular pawn of the queen’s was most likely more of a threat to the uninvited guest than to Ciel, so Sebastian slowed to a saunter and casually made his way to the scene.

First, he found the maid. Painted head to toe in black and white plaster, she was barely breathing. He shattered the casing with a caress and endured her teary gasps of gratitude that rose into cries of fear for the young master. Assuring her that he had it in hand, Sebastian deposited her in a window seat and continued on.

The cook had met a similar fate, only the white of this art was caked flour while the black was composed of charred flesh. Sebastian felt a bitter welling of discontent in his throat. Nobody infiltrated this household and punished the staff that were his to discipline.

Perhaps the most infuriating of the atrocities was the paralyzed Tanaka, tied around with wires like a puppet and hung from a chandelier, adorned in a tiny black and white clown suit with a jester’s cap and bells. It was a sheer affront to Sebastian’s sensibilities.

Closest to the study was the most shocking case—Finny, with his titanic strength, lay insensible and on death’s door. The blood had been drained out of him so that patches of his naked skin were as white as snow, contrasting vastly with midnight bruises—all in perfectly neat, equal squares.

This vile pierrot would weep rivers of blood.

As Sebastian stepped into the open doorway to the study, he was met with a vision of rare worth. The queen’s man, Ash, stood in a relaxed fencing stance, his sword tip buried in the back of a checkered figure. Meanwhile, Sebastian’s Lord struggled beneath the dead-weight of the maudlin corpse-to-be.

Spattered with arrows of red, the chess-board paint and clothing now looked like the kind of reversible backgammon board designed by Funtom that lesser aristocrats had taken to purchasing for convenience. Interestingly, there was not a spot of red anywhere to be seen on the queen’s messenger.

“My, my, what have we here?” Sebastian drawled, smirking boldly with the knowledge of how his greeting would be received, particularly as Ciel could not quite see him at that angle. “How terribly lax of the household, not only to subject a guest to such violence but to do so without even serving tea.”

Beneath the careless words bubbled a black fury that longed to be unleashed upon the half-dead clown Ash heaved up on the tip of his sword like skewered litter.

“If it isn’t the esteemed butler of the Phantomhive household,” greeted Ash with insatiable politeness. “Do not fret over hospitality. It would appear that the household has been incapacitated due to an oversight under my jurisdiction. Please accept my deepest apologies.”

That manner always grated. Sebastian approved of impeccable poise and grace but in a human it reeked of falsity. What human could exceed the perfection of a hell of a butler like Sebastian? It was petty, for sure, but he resented the man’s skill. Of course, in a true comparison, he would be the victor by far.

Still, the man had done him a favor of sorts. He ought to take it from here.

A vicious grin appeared and disappeared in the time it took him to cross the room in a flash, crossing behind Ciel and thrusting his gloved hand through the heart of the suspended victim. Following through with his momentum, he curled his bloody fist in Ash’s lapel and pulled the messenger so close that their bodies would have been flush if not for the corpse dangling between them. Sebastian paid no mind to the sword that pierced through to his own breast at this rash move.

“We shall, of course, request compensation appropriate to the damage,” he said mildly.

Twitching at the dirtying of his beautiful white clothes, Ash responded appropriately, but his voice faltered as Sebastian let go of him and caressed his face with soiled fingers.

“For my part, I shall repay the debt of gratitude owed for protecting the young Earl of Phantomive. You have my thanks.”

Interesting, the conflict in those amethyst eyes. Either Ash was as fond of carnage as the most violent of demons, or the flash of desire he exhibited was in answer to Sebastian’s touch. Judging by his clear adversity to the blood and grime he now wore, Sebastian surmised it was the latter.

Interesting indeed. That would be a show he could appreciate performing as much as his Lord might appreciate viewing—well, almost as much. Judging by the silence that should have been a ranting scold for dereliction of duty, Ciel would appreciate that view very much indeed.

Sebastian’s eyes slid towards his master and he was pleased by the quiet restraint he saw as Ciel’s lust awoke, lit, and was systematically smothered. The next time Ash returned to the manor with orders from the queen might just be an occasion to look forward to.

In the meantime, there was a great deal of work to be done to restore the household and its staff to presentability; particularly the staff. Ash might not enjoy paying the compensation for his “oversight” as much as Sebastian would enjoy collecting it.

 _He knows his way in the dark_  
_Mine is the way of the Lord_  
_Those who follow the path of the righteous_  
_Shall have their reward_  
_And if they fall as Lucifer fell_  
_The flames_  
_The sword_

Stubborn as an oak, Ciel held out admirably—no thanks to Sebastian. Deciding that a tryst with Ash was just the thing to alleviate his frustrations, he had set to provoking his Lord’s libido in time for the messenger’s return. Doubtless, Ash would visit soon to discuss the pierrot incident.

The recovery of the staff had provided Sebastian with ample opportunity to awaken Ciel’s imagination. His first assistant had been Pluto, who had been the least damaged. Knocked out with enough tranquilizer to kill any natural dog, patches of the demon hound’s fur had been dyed with an ink that faded from black to blue to indigo to grey with multiple washes. Since the earl seemed to be intrigued by bath time displays, Sebastian had made sure that the hound enjoyed his frequent washings.

When Mey-Rin recovered from shock, fury, and some internal bruising, Sebastian made all of her wildest dreams come true. A sensual full-body oil massage was his gift to her for not arriving in time to spare her the horror of being immobilized while her master was in danger.

Bard’s wounds took a good deal more time to recover but much less than most humans. Perhaps he had built up some fire resistance, having come through a variety of explosions and fires alive. His skin healed over fast so that he had little pink patches of scar tissue all over. To him, Sebastian applied various salves of differing degrees, including one designed to diminish scarring. He was diligent in the application and Bard’s skin returned to normal, bit by bit—every square inch of him.

All of this, Sebastian made sure Ciel was privy to. He was pleased by the little earl’s reluctantly aroused reaction to his wringing shuddering moans of pleasure from the enraptured maid. The blowjob he dutifully bestowed upon Bard after having made the man hard through his medicinal ministrations just happened to take place at the very hour Ciel was prone to sneaking fattening snacks from the pantry and the boy walked away trembling with repressed need.

Finnian was the final straw, though. When the monstrous boy’s health failed to return even after several blood transfusions, Sebastian determined that a more personal method was in order. Taking a page from the book of vampires, Sebastian laid the boy out on the lawn under Ciel’s bedroom balcony in the moonlight, slit open his own wrist, and let the blood drip into a mouth that received it unconsciously at first, then more and more greedily. By the time Finny woke, he was in a berserk trance and he writhed and squirmed and rubbed himself all over Sebastian until he came shamelessly several times and then passed out once more. When next he woke, the weakness that had subsumed him was gone and the bruises had faded to an ugly greenish yellow.

Still, the earl held out, but his will lasted right up until the moment he ran into a certain visitor being led through the entrance hall.

*

The Phantomhive Manor was ever a place of mixed sentiment for the angel known in current form as Ash. It was a place that had once been so steeped in sin the fallen angel had been lured by the stench of it. As Angela, she had cleansed the immorality and filth of those who lived here. As Ash, he watched over that progeny, intrigued by the young boy who walked a strange combination of paths both sinful and righteous.

In many ways, the boy was pure. Even his quest for vengeance was permissible under the biblical terms of old, when God was wrathful and vengeful, and purged the unrighteous from the Earth. In this, Ciel Phantomhive was a blessing to the angel who had purged this very house.

In other ways, the young Earl strayed. Contracting with a demon, for example. The butler by the name of Sebastian Michaelis reeked of the infernal, but Ash could sense a great power in him, and a restraint uncommon to his kind. It was intriguing to say the least.

Among the Fallen had been a companion who had been loved and treasured above all to the angel known as Ashaiel who had never-the-less loved God deeply. Tempted into sin by Lucifel, the angel secretly joined the ranks of the Fallen, tumbling unseen and unheard from the heavens. Not evil enough to become a demon, yet tainted by love of the Morning Star, Ashaiel remained an angel, cast from heaven all the same, clinging to the name Angela in its feminine form.

Ash believed that the infernal being who wore the skin of Sebastian Michaelis suffered no such torment of indecision. This demon was strong and disciplined—perhaps a general… perhaps Lucifer himself. This demon might be worthy of ruling over the now godless world crying out for purification by the side of an angel such as himself.

Regardless, this fascinating young Earl who had summoned such a demon was poised on a fine line between purity and defilement. Ash was curious as to which trait would prevail before he contrived to purify the latter.

Approaching the young boy, Ash bowed his most regal bow and extended the appropriate greeting. “Good day, Earl Phantomhive. It is a pleasure to see you looking so well and vibrant.” The words he chose had nothing to do with the bright red stain upon the Earl’s cheeks, or his obvious state of arousal—filthy in one so young, to be sure!—but rather for the light in his eyes and sheer glow of health that indicated a boy in the prime of his youth.

“I must thank you for your recent assistance. If I live to be so vibrant, it is because I am in your debt.”

Oh, but the scent of that arousal, such a conundrum! Contrary to the misguided belief of some, lust itself is not a sin, only the satiation of it in certain unsanctified circumstances. Lust was created by god and gifted to his creatures to encourage their procreation, yet this boy lusted for his own sex, and more than likely, for one of hell’s very own demons, at that. It was almost enough to damn him on principle alone, and yet… he was pure. Despite having awakened to desire, he resisted it. Despite having a demon whispering in his ear day in, day out, this unusual child remained intact—a virgin.

“I am pained to say, my lord, that this is only true because I am also at fault for putting you and your household in danger.” Ash dropped to one knee, his nose level with the boy’s crotch. He breathed in the heady scent of arousal and suppressed a shudder of conflicting natures. Angela valued purity above all else, but lust had been the reason Ash fell. “For this reason, the queen has consented to my request to make amends by serving at the Phantomhive manor for the next three days. Whatever my lord requires, it would be my humble honor to fulfill.”

“Her Majesty is generous.”

 _Stars_  
_In your multitudes_  
_Scarce to be counted_  
_Filling the darkness_  
_With order and light_  
_You are the sentinels_  
_Silent and sure_  
_Keeping watch in the night_  
_Keeping watch in the night_

Ever since Sebastian had seen to Ciel’s voyeuristic needs through his exhibitionist display with the hound, the young Earl had teetered between satisfaction and ruin. In some ways, he was content. He now knew that guilty pleasure that adults had been known to kill and die for. He now understood one of the more complicated facets of life—or so he believed. Understanding brought satisfaction. Not fulfillment, however.

Once, it seemed, was not enough. Worse, Ciel feared that he would be plagued by this need for the remainder of his short life. As long as Sebastian was by his side, Ciel would know desire, and it would torment him until he sated it again—and again, and again, and again.

This knowledge infuriated Ciel, and so he resolved to rise above it. He would not ask, and he would not order. He would not seek a repeat of the sinful display he had contrived before. He would not show that weakness to the demon who waited to devour him.

And yet… The longer he abstained, the more difficult it became. Ever since he had witnessed the charged discourse between Sebastian and the queen’s butler, Ash—who was so intriguingly like the white knight to Sebastian’s black—on the night that vile clown had turned his house upside down, he had begun to fantasize and dream.

Ciel had a thing for beautiful men in suits. That much was clear. It was also possible that he had a thing for men in positions of service who bore themselves with aplomb and dignity equal to that of their masters. That Ash served a Monarch and was still eligible in this category was impressive. Not as impressive as Sebastian but still very, very close.

Regardless, he never let any face fill his mind other than that of Sebastian’s to which he had already capitulated. The moment he gave in to such an admission of attraction to any other was the moment he gave in to the wiles of the demon. For Sebastian was plotting and planning, as openly as he dared. His shameless displays with the household servants caused Ciel mounting distress, as Sebastian no-doubt intended. The Earl was sure his tormentor’s only aim was to make life difficult for him.

That Sebastian’s entire goal in life was advertised to be the comfort and service of his lord and master was immaterial. The butler was just a front, however well played. It was the demon who resorted to underhanded tactics and subtle wars of attrition to flex his black wings within the confines of his contract, simply because he could, because he was powerful and proud. Of this, Ciel had no doubt.

Proud of himself for remaining just strong enough not to beg despite the demon’s best efforts, Ciel was stunned by the force of his desire when he laid eyes upon the beautiful white visage of Ash Landers. The moment his eyes alighted upon the man’s regal countenance striding through the manor at Sebastian’s side, Ciel became flushed with heat and he was glad of the pantaloon-style shorts that were fashionable at present as they were baggy enough to conceal his immediate and overwhelmingly favorable reaction.

To witness that snow white hair feathered upon black silk bed sheets, ashen lashes fluttering over lilac eyes, and rosy lips parting with gasps of approval… To watch Sebastian debase and defile that pure white creature…

The demon hound was as infernal a creature as Sebastian. That in itself held a certain appeal, and yet… The very thought of this utterly proper man so perfect in his countenance as to be in service to the queen herself writhing in ecstasy at Sebastian’s mercy was so delectably indecent that Ciel almost palmed himself then and there, under the full scrutiny of Tanaka—not to mention a very smug-looking Sebastian and his pleasantly smiling guest.

“Good day, Earl Phantomhive,” greeted the queen’s butler, bowing gracefully with his right arm crossed over his heart. “It is a pleasure to see you looking so well and vibrant.”

Ciel’s hand twitched with the instinct to touch his blushing cheek. He curbed it. “I must thank you for your recent assistance,” spoke the Earl, dutifully. “If I live to be so vibrant, it is because I am in your debt.”

“I am pained to say, my lord, that this is only true because I am also at fault for putting you and your household in danger.” Dropping to his knee, Ash kept his head lowered, concealing his lovely eyes from the Earl but presenting the shining crown of his silvered head. “For this reason, the queen has consented to my request to make amends by serving at the Phantomhive manor for the next three days. Whatever my lord requires, it would be my humble honor to fulfill.”

Momentarily struck dumb by a series of lewd and luscious visions—one of which involved thrusting his crotch right into Ash’s face and ordering that his humble new servant fulfill his lordly requirements—Ciel took several deep breaths as he fought a vicious onslaught of need. “Her Majesty is generous,” he said at last, in signal for the butler—his for the next 72 hours—to rise.

“Then you accept!” said Ash, with such a pleased expression and shine of adoration in his eyes that Ciel’s breath was stolen altogether.

*

“Such a fiasco is hardly necessary to my repertoire, Sebastian,” growled the earl at his most contentious.

“On the contrary, My Lord, it is an extremely fashionable dance in certain circles and would be considered a great asset,” Sebastian corrected. He offset the bold argument with a humble tone and a lowering of the head.

“If it pleases my lord,” said Ash, stepping forward from his position near the tea cart, “The tango is a dance of skill much favored by Her Majesty. To master it would be a compliment to the crown.”

“Indeed, many of the nobility have made fools of themselves attempting to display a dismal understanding of the bare basics,” Sebastian added.

Ash capped off the strategy beautifully. “I have heard, on the other hand, that the previous Earl of Phantomhive and his lady wife were quite accomplished in partner dances of a similar degree of difficulty, though none can quite match the intricacy of the tango.”

“It is quite a complicated feat,” Sebastian agreed. He kept his eyes lowered to conceal the glow of entertainment that surely shone in them but his smile, which could be read as amiable—and would no doubt be seen as insolent to Ciel—he allowed to show. “Perhaps My Lord would benefit from watching a demonstration.” Turning to Ash, Sebastian extended his hand in an elegant invitation. “I presume a butler of Her Majesty the Queen is quite capable of dancing the tango. Do you have a preferred role?”

Placing his hand daintily in Sebastian’s, Ash was already taking high steps, balanced on the balls of his feet. “I find myself amenable to either role,” the beautiful creature replied demurely. “Are you familiar with the contact tango style, per chance?”

It really was convenient to have Ash flirt right back with him like this. Ciel would be wiping drool from his chin by the time this dance was over. “Ah, yes, somewhat of a freeform style in which lead and follow may change frequently during the course of the dance.”

The contact tango was a perfect physical metaphor for the ebb and flow of courtship—or for the give and take of sexual encounters. It could remain perfectly coy if the follow continued to retreat from advances in the chest or hip regions. It could also get dirty and aggressive when such contact became the foundation of the dance. With Ash’s cooperation, both of these elements were put on display for the young earl.

It was on before they ever reached their mark, Ash’s dainty footsteps beginning to wend as they walked. From the point of contact in their joint hands, Sebastian began to move in orbit of his partner, letting his free arm slide around Ash’s waist and stalking him from behind for a few steps.

Mey-Rin caught up with this segue and belatedly set the gramophone to play, filling the room with spicy, passionate music that transformed their steps and the rhythm of their motions until Sebastian was chest-to-chest with Ash, chasing his fleeing feet across the room. Dodging a sweep of the leg, Ash turned them and took the lead, pulling Sebastian along until he was swung into a tight clasp and then slowly released. They began to circle, a gravitational pull and push locking them into a set distance until Ash’s leg rose slowly to frame Sebastian’s thigh. The demon took the opportunity to swing his prey into a sharp dip, then slowly rose from it, pulling Ash up with him.

A brief escape and a spin that brought to mind the exquisite flourish of petalled skirts, and Ash went on the offensive. Quick, circuitous steps drove Sebastian toward the watching Ciel and he leaned back into a fall to be caught and suspended by an outstretched hand. Ash reeled him in, only to be spun himself by the unexpectedly sturdy Sebastian and dropped into a low, lover’s embrace right before Ciel’s wide, enraptured gaze.

Shamelessly, Sebastian looked right into his lord’s eyes as he brushed the back of his long black nails over Ash’s cheeks. He breathed out in a slow, audible gush, his lips parted over bared teeth that snapped shut beside Ash’s ear. The tiniest quirk of a smirk accompanied a strong accent to the music, and then disappeared as if it had never been.

So the dance continued, with lifts and leans adding intrigue to the basic gliding, dragging, sweeping steps as Ash and Sebastian alternated lead and follow, base and aerial, aggressor and pursued. Despite exploring the contours of this partnership for the first time, the improvisation was seamless—both responding to the subtle cues of pressure along the arms and backs, and the advances and retreats initiated in the feet. There were simpler sections as well. The queen’s butler had such dainty hips that tilted and twisted with just enough motion to be noticed when they danced chest-to-chest in more romantic stretches of the developing story. Ciel certainly noticed.

Sebastian was not unaffected. It was impossible to dance this dance with an accomplished partner and not feed off the rise of passion it induced. At some point, a thump signaled the departure of the maid’s wits. Ciel never even noticed her drop to the floor in a dead faint. He was too busy having his soul dragged and pushed about the room by the two butlers moving in complete tandem.

When he lifted Ash high, one thigh bent into a triangle, the other balanced on his shoulder, Sebastian saw for himself just how engaged his partner had become. The slow slide down his body back to the floor into a sweeping turn was completed in a dip that left them nose to nose, their breath mingling so naturally that the kiss that followed was only a matter of course.

Both continued to breathe deeply through their noses as their tongues danced a more private tango. Sebastian gently lifted his partner even as their lips meshed about their twining tongues, escalating the proximity of the embrace until their fronts fit flush together.

Gasping for breath, Ash broke the kiss, craning his head over Sebastian’s shoulder and burying his face in ebony hair. It was as fitting a final pose as one could wish for.

Sebastian half expected the earl to break into applause, but the boy simply took up his cane and swept from the room, snapping, “Bring him,” without so much as looking back at them.

Happy to oblige, Sebastian swept his peer up into his arms once more and followed.

 _You know your place in the sky_  
_You hold your course and your aim_  
_And each in your season_  
_Returns and returns_  
_And is always the same_  
_And if you fall as Lucifer fell_  
_You fall in flames!_

Ash burned. His lungs still flared with the evidence of exertion from that delightfully sinful dance. His skin skittered with sparks and flurries under Sebastian’s caresses—like an extension of the dance, only of fingers on flesh. His groin blazed with a rising inferno, heat emanating through his rigid manhood and spreading in waves throughout his body.

He had no will to question the escalation of the desire that had overcome them both. There was no more appropriate outcome than to take their symbolic coupling to the next level. The audience, however, he could have done without.

“By the queen’s consent,” whispered Sebastian into his ear, “You serve at the earl’s pleasure.”

Ash gasped as his freed erection came into direct contact with the demon’s throbbing cock. For a moment, he lost the pattern of his thoughts as they ground together with excruciating friction.

Had he meant to speak a response? To what exactly?

Sebastian licked the rim of his ear and then slid his hips down and back up again, the demon’s cock poking up under Ash’s backside and dragging up between his balls, back into contact with his aching length.

“It pleases the earl to watch me take you,” Sebastian murmured. “I trust you have no objections.”

Only one. “Lead… and follow,” Ash groaned. “Take… and be taken.”

*

Such delectable insolence. How glorious it would be to break that will, crush it into a fine powder, and then mold it to his own designs.

As long as-

“Sebastian.”

Poised above the panting, subtly writhing pale lily that was Ash, Sebastian went still at the commanding tone. He could hazard a guess as to what Ciel had in mind.

“Yes, My Lord?”

“Any fop can learn one role and dance a passable tango,” began Ciel (who seemed to have forgotten that he had yet to achieve any such benchmark), leading to a place Sebastian was resignedly obligated to follow. “I would hope you could exhibit complete mastery over all the elements—or should I hire a private tutor?”

The chide would have been sufficient. As it was, the threat brought a black pall over the demon who seethed with the thought of letting another man fulfill his master’s needs—a man who was human and subject to human desires, who would doubtless give in to the seductive temptation of this boy and unforgivably sully what must remain unsullied.

“Dance for me, Sebastian. That’s an order.”

“Yes, My Lord.”

“I won’t touch a child!” hissed Ash.

So violent and reprehensive was his countenance that Sebastian was taken aback. He sensed such a strange mingling of blinding light and utter darkness in this man that, while he expected a high moral caliber, he anticipated an equally twisted depth of depravity. Clearly, there were lines the queen’s butler was not willing to cross. It only made him all the more intriguing.

There were a multitude of responses Sebastian could use in placation—pointing out that the earl was no ordinary child, or that he was coming into puberty—but he determined it prudent to let Ciel speak for himself.

“Wading into a bath of live spiders would be more preferable to me than allowing you—or any other—to touch me with any form of intimacy,” the earl drawled, shrugging off what might have been taken as an insult to his age and stature. “However, all you need do is to overlook my presence and Sebastian will be subject to your _every_ desire.”

Unspoken, the remainder of that statement was as clear as if he had voiced it aloud: Otherwise, Sebastian will abandon you in all of your wanton need and never so much as grace your skin with the caress of his eyes for the remainder of your pitiful, foolish life.

Ash was silent, surveying Sebastian and considering the earl’s words. This time, Sebastian deemed it best to let his tongue do the talking, but not in speech. He glided down Ash’s body, his lips a breath away from the skin, leaving a hot trail of moist air in their wake that Ash seemed to feel even in retrospect, shivering at that phantom touch then bucking his hips as the same hot breath passed over his arousal.

A tiny smirk tugged at one corner of Sebastian’s lips. He flicked out his tongue to prod ever-so-lightly at one ball-sac, then closed the distance with his lips, sucking lightly, then harder; drawing excess skin between his lips to be gently massaged by the two versatile buds. When they parted, his tongue pressed against the curve of the appendage and explored its silky surface. For contrast, he teased its partner with his fingers, dragging his nails in the barest of touches over that soft, thin skin, then massaging with the pads of his digits.

Trembling with a capacity for desire so engorged that Sebastian almost questioned the humanity of his fellow butler, Ash capitulated wholly and eagerly. “As you wish,” he moaned, his voice hitching and his knuckle disappearing between his teeth as he fought for control of his own body. “Whatever it takes,” he breathed, his hips rising slowly as Sebastian’s breath once more emulated a ghostly touch upon his skin, cooling his overheated nether-regions until it blew against the twitching pucker of his entrance.

*

The demon’s tongue was just as wicked as one might imagine. It moved in ways so sinful and unholy any human would be damned for eternity just recalling its touch. Thrusting, twisting, and writhing in an orifice designed purely to lure man into debauchery, it was Ash’s undoing.

He clean forgot about the young earl who might have been watching stoically, or shamefully tugging on his own desperately leaking cock for all the angel cared. He did catch a glimpse, once, of the wide-eyed young man, splay-legged with his vest hanging down over naked thighs, thrusting into his own hand and licking an unsightly dash of spittle from his plump red lips.

That image was as nothing compared to that of the dark butler presenting his unsheathed cock to his master and holding out a dish of room-temperature butter to be slathered upon it. If the little lord was unnecessarily attentive in his application, and if the butler’s stare at that small head with its chin tucked low to avoid eye contact was suspiciously intense, Ash never noticed. He was captivated by the angry red vigor of lust shading that jutting limb, juxtaposed against a patch of silky black curls and fine ivory skin.

He twitched with pinpricks of excitement and one anticipatory jolt of pleasure even as Sebastian approached, and then melted under the demon’s touch once again, only to be immolated by a fiery caress that almost distracted from the volcanic heat of that cock pressing into his body. It was too much for one angel, who had never been very resilient to the call of the damned to begin with. As Sebastian filled him up and then receded, rolling his hips in a repetitive ebb and flow like the sea at the whims of the moon, pleasure beyond the capacity of his human frame cruelly stole Ash’s senses, and then just as cruelly returned them with a vengeance, in a recurring pattern that left him mindless for an indeterminate length of time.

*

Ciel sucked lightly on the knuckle of his thumb, grazing it with his teeth as he devoured the sight of what Sebastian was doing to that poor man. From his surreptitious research, he hadn’t thought it was possible for a mere human to cum so many times, or to slip to and from consciousness so frequently in such a short time. Clearly, he was overwhelmed—but he wore it exquisitely.

The first two orgasms had been bullied from him by Sebastian’s unrelenting pounding rhythm. The third was coaxed with sliding motions and little rocks while the demon was seated deeply. The fourth was delayed by Sebastian’s delectable show of plunging his own buttered fingers deep into his own ass, the details of the sight hidden from Ciel’s view as the demon chose to face his master, kneeling over his prone lover. It was in that position—his back to Ash, face and straining erection open to Ciel’s stunned scrutiny—that Sebastian rode himself to the edge of climax, drawing the fourth orgasm from Ash who groaned, slammed up into the demon, and spurted messily as his exhausted member slipped out and his hips crashed back down to the tarnished sheets.

At that moment, Ciel ordered Sebastian not to cum. The demon looked pained and even a little angry, though he tried to conceal it, but he followed the order and his body grew very, very still, frozen in mid-air so as to avoid peaking accidentally. He waited with resentful patience simmering toward outright impatience. Ciel stared, carving into his memory every taut body line, every cramped muscle, every red flush, every splotch of Ash’s semen.

“I want to see him take you,” Ciel spoke in a hushed tone that was meant to sound like any other bored statement but instead came out in a breathy gush of longing.

Sebastian stared him down for a time, still bound by the order not to cum. Eventually, his thighs began to descend until they rested upon his calves and his knees dug into the edge of the mattress. Slowly, he crept backward, crawling when there was enough of the bed beneath him to bend over. He stretched back like a cat, rubbing his ass against Ash’s cock until the queen’s butler came to his senses with a moan and instinctively moved to claim that delicious rump.

*

Sebastian was addictive—so much so that Ash was beyond any semblance of restraint. He wasn’t entirely sure that he had managed even to consistently maintain his male form, for he had plummeted into unconsciousness several times. His supernatural prowess, however, was such that his libido was thoroughly revived when his eyes creaked open to identify the warm friction rubbing up against him as Sebastian's beckoning ass.

He watched for a moment, his cock hardening obligingly and sliding against delectably round globes, slipping between the crack and out again, and poking mounded flesh that presented just the right amount of gelatinous give to make him groan with longing. He was vaguely aware that Sebastian had ridden him to a rather shattering fourth orgasm already but he felt resentful that he had been so caught up in the trance of ecstasy that he had been unappreciative of the event.

This time, even his heaven-blessed stamina was waning, and he found himself better able to resist drowning in the excess of sensation that Sebastian lavished upon him. Rising to his knees, he pulled the demon’s hips back and held them steady. He positioned his solid length, poking just the tip into that widening hole before thrusting deep, stretching it into a yawning cavern that constricted around him and consumed him whole in a swathe of ravishing flame.

Burning up like a star falling to Earth, Ash plowed desperately into the infernal creature that had him spellbound, raking his nails down a pristine expanse of lithe muscle and ridged vertebrae. Blood welled in little bright red beads, expanding into thin rivers, and he bent over to lick the trails from base to tip, then made a horizontal slash just above the slight round of one hip, lowering his mouth to taste that as well. His vision blurred, and only at the hiss of delight that came from Sebastian did Ash realize that the drops of blood he imbibed were nothing less than intoxicating demonic vitality. The taste was as heady as the excruciating intercourse.

His eyes rolled up into his skull until he managed to squeeze them shut, folding himself over Sebastian’s back and pistoning his hips rapidly even as his soul attuned to the pace of their synchronized breathing. Sebastian’s back swelled with every breath and his own belly pressed down into the body flush against his own. Parts of him were held up only by the rigid form beneath him, his upper body curiously enervated while his lower sung with tension. The scent of Sebastian’s hair, tickling his nose and lips, and the sounds escaping their mutual heaving lungs; the slap of flesh colliding, and the squelch of a moistened tunnel; there was so much to enrapture the senses. A fifth and final explosion of ecstasy eclipsed all other sensation, however.

With a pathetic cry that tore from a raw throat wrung thin with cries, moans, and shrieks, Ash tumbled into oblivion, taking his lover with him at the high-pitched whimper of consent from the earl shuddering to his own voyeuristic zenith.

*

When Sebastian finally came, it was with a violent shiver of relief, his crotch thumping the mattress into which he had been driven under the dead-weight of his spent lover. His elongated claws were fisted into the sheets, which were torn and tattered by fingers curled with seizures of rapture. Ash fucked like he danced—exquisitely.

Raising his head more wearily than he could account for, Sebastian blearily eyed the earl who was sprawled in post-coital languor in his padded, velvet armchair and lazily raised soiled fingers to his lips to taste. By the look in his eyes, he was already warming to the prospect of further education in the arts of the tango.

 _And so it must be_  
_For so it is written_  
_On the doorway to paradise_  
_That those who falter and those who fall_  
_Must pay the price!_

After two consecutive nights and one last day of tango lessons, Ash was hard-pressed not to stumble bow-legged from the Phantomhive mansion. Ciel rather admired the slow, controlled motion as impeccably still hips rode atop gracefully gliding thighs and rigidly rolling calves in order to minimize motion and maximize dignity.

The earl wondered whether or not he should expect future errors in judgment from the queen’s butler—which would subsequently require further disciplinary sojourns at the Phantomhive estate for putting Ciel in harm’s way. He denied even to himself that he hoped for exactly that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics: Javert/Stars (from Les Miserables)


	3. The Robin and the Siren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a kidnapping gone wrong, Druitt gets everything he never knew he wanted, and more. Ciel then requires Sebastian's co-operation in cleansing himself of the memory.
> 
> Sebastian/Druitt (Additional Warnings: BDSM elements, asphyxiation, rough sex)  
> Solo Sebastian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aleistor Chamber, the Viscount of Druitt is a mouthful to say and as they usually just refer to him by his title, I decided that Ciel and Sebastian's intimate addressing of him would be simply "Druitt". The viscount himself, however, refers to himself as Aleistor in his own POV.  
> 

It was a busy occupation, catering to every whim and necessity of the young Earl of Phantomhive. On many an occasion, there was just enough time in the day to clean up the very specific and drastic messes of the household staff and still make it to the scene of whatever new crime threatened to befall the earl. On some few occasions, Sebastian found himself having to catch up with kidnappers, having been detained by direct orders that kept him from where he truly needed to be. Perhaps once, or twice, he let the kidnappings happen for the sake of a higher purpose.

It was on one such occasion that Sebastian found himself lovingly decorating a cake with intricate sugar and marzipan vines and roses, waiting for the order that would hasten him to his Lord’s side. He had been well aware of the Viscount of Druitt’s men following them through the market district and all the way back to the manor. He had begun mixing when the sounds of a feeble struggle sang to his keen ears. While the cake baked in the oven, he trailed the culprits to the hidden den where the viscount intended to cage his new conquest. Then, he returned to prepare the icing, upon which he finally lavished the finishing touches.

At last, it was ready—and so was the earl.

*

“Sebastian! Enough procrastination. Come and get me!”

“Not this time, my delectable little robin.”

In the mirror, the viscount knelt behind him on the edge of a ridiculous circular monstrosity of a bed, admiring the lacy bodice and long dark curls Ciel had been subjected to in parody of their first meeting. The earl was propped like a doll on the floor against the round of the mattress; hands bound behind his back and ankles and thighs bound together, stretched out before him with feet poking out under the hem of an absurdly long dress. Apparently, the mirror was there so that he could admire himself together with the hopelessly perverted viscount.

“Not even that inhumanly talented butler of yours will find you h-”

“Here?”

The bored drawl belonged to a figure outside of the mirror’s range of view but the silken voice was unmistakable.

“Deal with him,” the earl ordered haughtily, breathing out a huff of frustration for the ordeal he had been put through before realizing that Sebastian had no intention of showing up on his own.

“Yes, My Lord.”

 

 

“Impossible!”

Shrieking a font of clichés about all the things he would not allow to be done to his “robin,” the viscount launched himself out of Ciel’s line of sight, wielding his nails like claws as if he were some spitting kitty. Sebastian ought to like that.

Honestly, Sebastian was testing the waters more and more these days, always finding new angles and nooks and crannies of wording to make life difficult. Even after the reward Ciel considered the tryst with Ash to be, the demon still hadn’t quite forgiven the hound incident.

Not that Ciel cared either way whether Sebastian forgave him or not. Why should he care about the sensibilities of a demon? Except for when they proved useful to his ambitions, of course.

As often happened when he remembered the impossibly erotic coupling of the black and white butler duo, Ciel grew a little distracted, his cheeks warming and a slight lump forming in the thin over-skirt smoothed perfectly over his lap. He saw the evidence in the mirror and grimaced. This was no time to be…

“Sebastian!”

“My Lord?”

“What the hell is taking you so long? I ordered you to deal with him.”

“Of course, My Lord. That is exactly what I am doing, although it was remiss of me to begin out of your sight,” the demon crooned.

Belatedly, Ciel registered that the shrieks and howls had been replaced with gasps and whimpers while he was lost in thought. He craned his head, trying to see what had caused the change, but even as he did so, Sebastian carried the subject of his orders into view and deposited him on the bed. Bound at the wrists with his own frilled cravat, the viscount was otherwise stark naked. He blinked at himself in the mirror and then moaned—a sound that was muffled by the butler’s black silk tie as it slid between his lips and stilled his tongue to be knotted about the back of his head.

Situating himself behind the villainous noble, Sebastian delicately reached out to press between his shoulder blades, sliding his gloved hand down a rigid spine and smiling at Ciel in the mirror as if to say, _See how clever I am to interpret your order in such a way as not even you knew you wanted?_

For he did want it. It wasn’t about watching Sebastian lay with an admittedly and uncommonly beautiful man. Nor was it even about poetic justice for this latest fiasco—though it certainly did add up to that, as well. Rather, Ciel wanted to see this man who lusted after children even younger than himself—and had no-doubt indulged in some truly sick perversions—at the mercy of the demonic butler.

“Do it,” he said simply.

“Yes, My Lord.”

*

Aleistor Chamber was at a loss, truly. This impossibly alluring man—a servant, no less!—was positively ancient for his tastes; so stuffy and proper, there wasn’t an ounce of wide-eyed innocence left in him. He was… he was…

…the most exquisite being Aleistor had ever encountered. For all of the above, there was an aura about him of eternal youth; such glowing skin, such fine raven hair… For all his utter lack of purity, his poise sang to Aleistor like a siren’s call.

The viscount found himself beyond willing to accept the shocking reversal of fortune. Bound and naked, displayed before the mirror for his own scrutiny—not to mention that of Ciel whose glorious alabaster cheeks were powdered with a faint ruby gleam—he trembled with a lust more intense than he had ever previously known.

Even so, he was nervous and uncertain. Always, he was the gently guiding, experienced older lover, just as he had intended for Ciel to find out. Now, he was utterly at the mercy of a temperament of unknown persuasions. The Phantomhive butler—Sebastian, that was his name—had a sharp, cutting smirk and eager eyes that drew shudder after unwilling shudder from his lithe frame.

Did this dangerous man subscribe to the darker pleasures? Would he find satisfaction in Aleistor’s pain? It was a terrifying thought, but one that strangely snagged a thread of his libido.

The element of the unknown only escalated the unexpected thrill of the occasion. The viscount was under no illusions as to what his captor had planned, only ignorant of the intricate details; the when, the how, and the degree. As it was, the last time he had been taken, or, indeed, experienced such uncertainty at the hands of a lover… he had been but a boy himself, not much older than little Ciel Phantomhive.

*

Sebastian leisurely removed his gloves and pried apart the folds of his jacket, carefully folding each item as it was discarded and piled neatly on the edge of the large bed. His reflected gaze was properly trained on Druitt, though he could easily make out Ciel’s dolled-up form down below. The little lord was in a fine state, watching with a rapt intensity very different from such voyeuristic forays to date. The demon had no qualms about giving his audience what it wanted—but he knew the limits.

The young earl may be wizened beyond salvation in matters of torture and cruelty, but he was unlikely to ever associate such a scale of pain with pleasurable pursuits. The punishment he no-doubt imagined he longed to witness was little more than light BDSM play to Sebastian, and well within the wanton viscount’s desirable parameters, he was sure.

Rather enjoying the setup, Sebastian lay his naked form out horizontally behind the kneeling viscount, propping his head up on an elbow and drinking in the view in the mirror. When Druitt’s posture began to wilt, he draw his hand back sharply and cracked it across one delectably rounded buttock, causing his subject to gurgle around his gag and bolt upright. His cock bobbed encouragingly more upright, too.

Communicating with his victim in nuances of expression rather than in words, he let his lips thin out a little further in sadistic approval, rubbing his fingers soothingly over the afflicted skin. Then, he raised his eyebrows and snapped his wrist back for another slap. He paused, then smacked again, following up with several quickly blows that left the viscount breathing heavily, whimpering, and pleading with his eyes. Saluting the mirror, his cock was an angry red enthusiast.

Considering that Ciel would need something to feast his eyes upon while Sebastian’s face was hidden from view, the demon generously reached around Druitt’s body to fondle the eager length even as he raised his torso up and swiped his tongue over the heated surface of the abused ass-cheek. A muted sigh escaped the gagged man, and Sebastian tweaked the tip of his cock mildly in a reminder not to get too comfortable. This elicited a long, low moan that took them all by surprise. Sebastian peeked out from behind the viscount’s body to raise one impeccably shaped eyebrow in commentary before returning to his ministrations.

Sliding his palm down to cup Druitt’s balls, Sebastian squeezed, and continued squeezing with consistently greater force. In the meantime, he swirled his tongue right into the tight little hole that was twitching wildly out of conflicting desire and denial. A good massage loosened it right up until Druitt was wavering on his knees, his eyes rolled up in a haze of conflicting sensation. While his balls sent a message of mingled pleasure and pain, caught as they were in the vice of Sebastian’s palm, his inner passage registered pleasure in response to rough, wet friction and pinpoint application of pressure.

Impressed by just how hard the viscount had become, Sebastian released his strangling grip and trailed the tips of his fingers up and down the rock solid length that was surely tingling as pain receded. A few more strokes of the tongue and then he withdrew his touch entirely, taking a moment to observe the framed portrait he had set up. Druitt’s white skin and flaxen hair contrasted with flush of red around his neck. His straining erection was the centerpiece, floating above the disturbed little doll. There was a conspicuous tent in the pink surface of Ciel’s dress now—quite amusing, really, in that get-up.

As the trembling in Druitt’s thighs grew too much to bear, his bent knees slid open wider until his backside lowered to the mattress, taking some of his weight. Sebastian reached under him to fondle the hole he had just tongue-fucked quite thoroughly.

“What do you want?” the demon asked, rising up behind the viscount and raking the nails of his free hand across a pale chest rising and falling with extreme excitement. He pinched a nipple tightly between his fingers and twisted, contributing to the splashes of red upon this portrait. “Hmmm?”

Rising over the man’s raw, throaty cries, Ciel’s voice gruffly interrupted. “Who cares what he wants? I want you to split him open.”

“Now, now. It doesn’t hurt to ask. You might find yourselves in accord.” Sebastian was already moving to comply but the earl hadn’t specified a timeline so he went about it at his own pace. Sliding his hand up the soft skin of the viscount’s perfectly hairless chest, he freed his left hand to slip one nail beneath the knot of the silk gag. His slowly rising fingers wrapped around Druitt’s throat, squeezing to the verge of crushing the man’s Adam’s apple once in threat, then loosening to a more bearable hold. “Well?” he prompted. “Are you in accord?”

A barely perceptible nod gave Sebastian the cue to slice through the tie, which fell away in shame for marring the viscount’s light palette with such a dark stain.

Trembling as much with fear as with desire, Druitt spoke the phrase wordlessly demanded by Sebastian’s stern gaze in the mirror. “Please. That’s what I want. Please.”

*

The butler’s chuckle sang in his blood, filling Aleistor with an indiscriminate joy at having been responsible for such a delicious sound. The only thing he knew was that he was Sebastian’s to defile or devour at will and he would do or say anything to please this dark creature who had miraculously smiled upon him.

Had he been told an hour ago that he would have submitted himself to the domination of a man like this, he would have laughed and condemned the offender for a liar. He was beyond questioning it, though; completely wrapped up in his own filthy image and that of the servant who now lorded over him with impunity. It further flattered him that he had the earl’s avid attention and he was quite pleased with the boy’s show of appreciation. Perhaps, when Sebastian had had his way with Aleistor…

The strangling hand about his throat tightened beyond the uncomfortable and he struggled to gasp in air before the flow was cut off entirely. His eyes popped alarmingly, making for a less than stunning reflection, but he fought the urge to struggle, sensing Sebastian’s air of warning.

The butler leaned in to whisper in his ear. “If you so much as think about Ciel that way again, I will gut you. I don’t care what you do with other children—this one is mine. Understand?”

Frantically, Aleistor nodded, shocked to consider that perhaps his pure little robin had already been taught to fly by this sinful creature. Worse; he almost found the thought enticing.

“Good. Then let me offer you some consolation,” Sebastian breathed.

Even as he spoke, his hard dick poked against Aleistor’s entrance and he released the stranglehold just enough to let air through. It hurt, and breathing was a struggle, but between air depravation, adrenaline, and sheer lust, the viscount was in a heady state of nirvana.

Strong fingers dug into his belly, holding him steady while he was violated slowly but surely. Whatever moisture Sebastian’s tongue had left behind was insufficient to lubricate the passage of his member and he took his time sliding in every dry inch—until he didn’t.

“Sebastian!”

The butler froze, his dark eyes lowering to the bonneted head of the boy and then sliding back up to meet the one-eyed gaze in the mirror. “My Lord?”

Aleistor held his breath, sure of what was coming. The sweet little earl was a fierce one and his temper was always coming between them.

“There’s no need to go easy on him. Get on with it.”

The moment the earl finished speaking, Aleistor’s perception of the world wavered. A raw shout escaped him as Sebastian slammed home with a vengeance. The belated gasp of “Yes, My Lord,” came to Aleistor’s ears as if from a distance. His body was shuddering in rejection but the more he resisted the sensation of fullness, the more shudders were squeezed from him, his rigidly tightened muscles wringing pinpricks of pleasure from among the fading haze of pain.

He didn’t want this. This wasn’t what he had signed up for. This was…

Slowly, his eyes peeled open to focus on the mirror in which he saw himself displayed in all of his ravished glory. Draped over his shoulder was the most beautiful and dangerous face he had ever seen. His cock throbbed with need.

Suddenly, he didn’t care if he was torn apart, strangled, or disemboweled by the sharp nails cutting into the minimal flesh of his belly. He just wanted Sebastian to _move_ , because it didn’t matter if it hurt—he would cum anyway from the sheer depravity of it all.

Another shudder wracked him as Sebastian growled, and then he lost the ability to think entirely.

*

Ciel moaned as Sebastian began drawing his hips back and snapping them forward, holding Druitt in place with the one hand shuttering his throat and the other clawing little red marks into his belly. The viscount had to be in pain—he had to be! If not the strangulation, then the way Sebastian tore into him… something had to be hurting him. And yet, Ciel was hard-pressed to identify anything other than sheer ecstasy in the stream of vulgarity that poured out between labored breaths and howling moans. It was so over-the-top it was almost like a parody. He was so caught up in the flagrancy of the scene that his own arousal subsided to a dull ache.

“Bite me! Bite me! Bite me! Bite me! Bite me, you whoring bastard!”

Ciel choked at that, fascinated by the way the viscount’s jaw dropped and his neck lolled as Sebastian’s teeth sank into the flesh between neck and shoulder, drawing blood. The demon licked his lips and grinned viciously at Ciel. He sucked lightly at the wound to stem the flow of the welling blood, even as he continued to thrust, sending Druitt into even higher throes of transport.

With nothing else to encourage him, the viscount’s cock jerked and then erupted, trembling as his seed seeped messily, dripping down onto Ciel’s bonnet and soiling his wig. The very thought of that man’s semen so near to his skin filled Ciel with fury, but before he could order some new atrocity, Sebastian hauled the viscount backwards, bending him over and beginning to pound him in earnest.

Druitt transformed after that first unprovoked orgasm, flopping like a ragdoll under Sebastian’s thrusts with his face buried in his own long hair amid the sheets. The dramatic moans of earlier were replaced with a steady monotone sound and his fingers clutched weakly at the bedding, then released and clutched again. At one point, he raised his head, tears in his eyes as he mouthed something incoherent, then he slid forward under the force of Sebastian’s pounding, only his backside raised to receive the demon’s plunder.

That exposed and sensuous man, overwhelmed with sensation and thoroughly honest in his expression perhaps for the first time Ciel had ever witnessed, was incredibly moving. As Ciel stared, rapt, the viscount’s voice raised in a strangled cry and his entire framed writhed as he came again into the mattress. This time, Ciel’s passion rose almost instantly, blistering his skin with heat. His hips thrust fruitlessly at the air but he was thwarted any relief by the bonds securing his legs and those restraining his hands. He wondered if it were possible for him to get off on sight and sound alone.

There was still more to come, though. Sebastian wasn’t done yet. Flipping his wholly compliant lover like a sack of sugar, he slid Druitt right up to the edge of the mattress; blond hair spilling down over the soiled pink bonnet. Then, he lifted the viscount’s thighs and wrapped them around the back of his own neck. At that angle, he began to plough into the man, bracing himself on his hands—both curled tightly about a throat from which only rasping, wheezing noises could pass.

Shamefully affected but too far gone to remember he could be released from his bondage with a word of command, Ciel rolled onto his belly, craning his neck up toward the view upon which he was fixated. The wig he wore slipped awkwardly down over his eye patch as he frantically humped the ground, the soft folds of his dress protecting him from extreme friction. It was hardly the most comfortable or dignified manner in which to strive toward satiation, but it was gratifying all the same, and he came with a heavy groan, flopping onto his side and staring tiredly up at the barely-conscious viscount and the gleefully rutting demon.

“Finish him,” Ciel breathed, uncomfortable in too many ways to put up with his trappings any longer. “Now.”

Belatedly, he wondered if the demon—with his new take on interpretations—would read that order as a death warrant, but he didn’t particularly mind either way.

*

Sebastian had little room for pity; not for the fiend who was near senseless with bliss under him, nor for the earl who lay in a pathetic state of post-coital collapse, helpless to free himself. However, an order was an order.

Extricating himself roughly from the somewhat bloody and vulgarly gaping hole that contracted in denial of his absence, he raked his clawed nails down flawless white flesh as he went. Without pause, he sucked Druitt’s latest erection—well-coated in previous excretions—between his lips and devoted his tongue, cheeks, and throat to wringing near instantaneous gratification from the tiring appendage. One well-placed thrust of his fingers and Druitt keened; his back arcing drastically at the sudden, devastating release.

Just like that, Sebastian left the unconscious viscount (marked with bites, nail tracks, and splattered with his own fluids), dressed quickly, and freed his master, sweeping the tired and grumpy boy up into his arms.

“My Lord, all you needed to do was order me to untie you,” he reminded, sweeping the awful bonnet and adorable but disgustingly stained wig from Ciel’s noble head.

“Shut up,” Ciel muttered, burying his face in Sebastian’s jacket.

Following orders, Sebastian silently conveyed his master back to the Phantomhive manor. It was a short trip with his speed unleashed as Ciel would not desire being seen in such a state. Even so, the earl was uncommonly sullen.

Wondering at it, Sebastian judged that dinner was of little concern at the time being. Tomorrow, he would make breakfast a heavier affair than usual, then a light lunch would suit as Ciel and the young nobility visiting from the city would doubtlessly prefer to gorge themselves on the masterpiece of a cake the butler had spent his afternoon concocting. Plans revised, Sebastian drew a bath for his master, scenting the water with a bundle of lavender bound in cloth to help relax the nerves and perhaps improve a surly mood.

Noting the way Ciel almost slipped beneath the water’s surface when he was lowered into the bath, Sebastian helped the tired boy to settle his head and shoulders on the rim.

“It has been a long day,” he commented, judging that the silencing order had run its course and now his primary directive to see to Ciel’s well-being took precedence. “Shall I attend you?”

“I’m perfectly capable of bathing myself,” Ciel snapped. There was a lot less sting to his weary tone than he probably intended.

“Naturally, My Lord. However, that does not answer my question.” Conceding to diplomacy, Sebastian let the boy have his pride.

“Do as you will,” Ciel responded, ever difficult.

“Very well.”

Sebastian began rubbing down the boy’s skin, paying careful attention to tired muscles and finishing with a perfunctory rinsing of the groin. He then watered the earl’s hair and massaged scented soap into it, letting his fingers ease some of the tension from that small head.

“Why?”

The rogue question slipped from the earl’s lips as if his defenses had failed him.

Scooping up some water, Sebastian trickled it over the boy’s soapy hair, rinsing it out little by little. “Was tonight’s exhibition not to your liking?” Sebastian returned.

“You left me with him, knowing what he wanted to do—what he’s done to others!”

Ciel’s agitation rose rather quickly, so Sebastian knelt beside the tub, placing a calming hand on the boy’s forehead and slowly running it back through hair still slick with soap.

“Do you imagine that I would allow any man to defile what I have decided must remain intact? Never fear, My Lord. I would sooner spoil that treat for myself than let any other sully it. Besides, I thought you would enjoy seeing that man begging, broken, and desperate at your mercy.”

“That’s not… That’s not what it’s supposed to be like,” Ciel murmured, with an unusual note of fear in his voice. “It’s one thing to take pleasure in revenge, but… I’m not supposed to find sexual stimulation in it. How am I any better than that pervert?”

Sebastian couldn’t help himself. He laughed. Rinsing the earl’s hair completely, he squeezed it with a towel and then drew the boy out of the water, toweling him dry as he spoke. “My Lord, you mustn’t limit yourself to the standards of those pitiable mortals who only know how to fit two pieces of a puzzle together and then grind and thrust until it feels good. If you were inclined to find shame in the more pleasurable sins, I should imagine you would have plenty more damning examples to dwell upon.”

“You didn’t climax.”

Sebastian was genuinely surprised at the earl’s leap in subject. Come to think of it, he had followed the earl’s orders without much thought for himself, finishing off Aleistor and then seeing to Ciel’s comfort. He tilted his head at the intriguing observation.

“I am hardly one to be troubled by such a trivial oversight, My Lord,” he said mildly. “After all, I am one hell of a butler, though I do thank you for your concern.”

“Who’s concerned?” Ciel scowled. “I don’t want to go to bed tonight with the memory of that deviant viscount stuck in my head.” Seated on the edge of the bath with a fluffy white towel wrapped about his small figure, Ciel raised his chin with that authoritative cast that usually preceded an order. “Touch yourself,” he said. “Finish what you started.”

*

It was one thing to watch Sebastian tease an erection out of another man, or grow steadily harder himself in the doing, but this was something else altogether. The arrogant striptease seemed, at first, to be for Ciel and Ciel alone—but the earl realized eventually that that wasn’t the case. It was partly for him, yes, but it was also partly for Sebastian himself.

As the demon’s fingers caressed his own skin in passing from one sealed button to the next, it was clear that his own touch excited him and extracted from him an eroticism Ciel had not been able to imagine. Sebastian’s eyes bore into his own, causing him to blush as sharp white teeth scraped a red lip, chasing the tongue that had just darted out in a teasing swipe. Long lashes fluttered daintily as Sebastian dragged the pads of his fingers over a hardened nipple, playing with it with one eye on Ciel and an infuriatingly sexy little smirk.

When he began to stroke himself, the moans that escaped him were heavier and more honest than those any lover had yet wrung from him in Ciel’s hearing. His fingers rippled as they twisted on the rise and fall, each joint fluidly caressing muscles and veins attuned to his own superior touch.

It didn’t take long for his balls to take on a heavy fullness and little gasped breaths seeped through his parted lips, hitching and gushing in turn. His eyebrows twitched and his chin lifted even as his abdominal muscles contracted.

“What are you thinking about?” Ciel demanded, tingling all over at the unguarded look of longing in those black, black eyes.

“You,” the demon responded. A moment later, his lips curved into a smile made frightening by the thirst in his expression. “Your soul.”

With that, his features contorted; his mouth fell open, his eyes widening then squeezing closed of their own accord before peering back into Ciel’s as the glint of ecstasy subsided.

Without a word, the earl stood and roughly rubbed the towel over any remaining wet patches of his skin then discarded it and took up his dressing gown, wrapping it around himself.

Completely ignoring the hardness throbbing between his legs, he allowed Sebastian to prepare him for bed and then curled up under the blankets, replaying the memory of Sebastian’s masturbation over and over in his mind, not wanting to forget a moment of it. Finally, when he was too tired to be kept awake by the ache any longer, he stroked himself to a quick climax and then sank into sleep with one last vague thought of how Sebastian would complain at the mess in the morning.


	4. Demons Dance in the Darkest Depths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ciel retires early from a ball in Prince Soma's honor, resulting in a private moment interrupted by Sebastian. Soma agrees to let Sebastian pleasure him for Ciel's sake after learning that the earl dislikes being touched. To Sebastian's dismay, a bond begins to form between the two youths.
> 
> Sebastian/Soma (Additional Warnings: Light masochism)  
> Soma+Ciel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Batten down the hatches, it's a long chapter.

It was a long-suffering sigh, the likes of which could move even the sternest of hearts—if only a heart existed in the chest of the one who played witness. It was also the fifth consecutive such sigh in the last hour, building upon three heard in the hour before and several lesser sighs let slip in the lead-up to the event.

“Remind me—again—why I am doing this?” Ciel asked through grit teeth as Viscount Druitt whirled by with a suited up Pluto in his arms.

“Surely the Earl is young enough that his memory extends beyond the most recently passed span of ten minutes to the last time that question was asked,” responded the cheeky snit of a demon. “And such a cliché question at that,” he added as if in an aside, though it was clearly designed for Ciel’s ears.

The point wasn’t to hear—yet again—the reasoning behind this farcical ball. The point was to respond to that reasoning with a warranted complaint and vent some of his frustration. May as well skip to part B. “If Soma wants to experience the Brittish high life, why can’t he go to someone else’s ball? And the guest list is a joke! I left it in your hands because I thought you had some sense! I should have known better than to give you a prime chance to exploit your sadistic whims! And why are my household staff in attendance for that matter!? It’s ridiculous to hire outside help when those idiots are all lazing about playing dress-ups and dropping expensive glassware!” A timely crash and tinkle of glass invoked a habitual twitch in Ciel’s cheek that only further blackened his mood.

“Prince Soma,” Sebastian began in defiant response to the rhetorical question—emphasizing the title as a subtle rebuke to his unusually ill-mannered lord, “Has not yet become acquainted with any nobles with the means to throw a ball of such grandeur—other than yourself, of course. Furthermore, it is most beneficial for him to be able to experience this part of our culture in a safe environment where he can learn the ‘dos and don’ts’ of polite society. For that reason, I assembled the guest-list based on the most personal of your acquaintances in order to ensure that no lasting offences are made.”

From the banquet table lining the far end of the ballroom, a loud laugh penetrated through the music as Lau’s sister and—disturbingly—consort lifted Bard and began waltzing him around the room. Dressed as ever in the traditional wear of his home country, Lau almost ripped the straight, tight silk, bending into his over-reactive laughter. It was that over-reaction that set Finny to giggling and the tipsy gardener stumbled back a few steps into Agni who quickly righted him and inquired after his state the way a proper gentleman should. In fact, Agni was the closest thing to a gentleman in the room—but only because Ash had recently disappeared, most likely to relieve himself.

Sebastian’s countenance turned almost as sour as Ciel’s as he contemplated the final question. “As for the staff, it occurred to me that it would be far more convincing a ball without their constant incompetence causing disruptions.” There was no need to point out the fact that incompetence at dancing, dining, and just generally being was just as disruptive as incompetence in serving. The demon’s expression gave away his disappointment as well as his chagrin at having harbored any kind of expectations at all. “Besides, as you have very few personal acquaintances—even with the recent additions of certain men to that list—there was a need to pad the guest list.”

“Be that as it may,” Ciel growled, his eyes glued to Mey-rin who was bowing deeply as if she were a male suitor and then pulled Lizzie into her arms, jokingly making a few inappropriate advances that had her companion tittering merrily, “I’ve had enough of this charade.” He stood from the chair in which he had been petulantly seated since escaping a slew of obligatory dances with Lizzie and tapped his cane for emphasis.

“Shall I arrange for the carriages to line up, My Lord?”

Ciel resisted the urge to frown. Come to think of it, he did indeed think of everyone here as a personal acquaintance—even that dratted Viscount—or else he would never consider leaving them to revel without him in his own mansion. If there were even one person present he considered a real guest, he would rather die than show even the slightest of imperfections.

Sebastian’s implication was that, as the host of the ball, the festivities could not continue without his presence. This was not, however, a real ball, and thus the rules could be bent. His eyes strayed to the exotic prince watching the three odd sets of dancers who would be ridiculed and tossed out of a real ball for such conduct. Soma’s eyes were lit up with delight as he took in every detail from the blooming petals of Lizzie’s and Mey-rin’s whirling skirts to the erotic placement of Druitt’s hands and the tongue lolling from Pluto’s mouth. The claim that this event was to be a learning experience for Prince Soma had merit, but only if one considered it an example of just about every “don’t” in the book. Might as well add one more.

“Leave them be,” Ciel ordered. “Let them have their fun.”

Determinedly trying to forget that there was a host of fools capering about in his mansion, Ciel settled into the armchair by the window of his room and sipped contentedly at the calming herbal tea Sebastian had prepared for him before returning to the ball at his order. Tea in one hand and a novel in the other, he was well relaxed and feeling almost cheerful by the time a hesitant knock startled him into choking on a tepid mouthful.

“Ciel?” A dark fall of hair swung around the opening door, accompanied by olive eyes that glinted with a hint of gold in the flickering lamplight by which Ciel read. “Ciel!”

Whatever reason for hesitation had daunted the Indian prince disappeared the moment he laid eyes on his favorite cuddly toy. As usual, he made a beeline for Ciel and threw his arms about the earl’s small frame, squeezing tightly—perhaps a little more tightly even than usual which was no-doubt a side effect of the champagne that lingered on his breath.

“I’m having so much fun! Thank you!”

Struggling at first not to shove Soma away until he could set his half-full teacup safely back on the table, Ciel fought a wave of panic that rose up belatedly. The Prince’s grip on him was tight and bound his arms to his sides. Being held captive in another man’s arms like this was a feeling he could not abide. However, instead of opposing it, his body froze up, even his breathing coming to a full halt.

This wasn’t the first time Soma had held him like this, but there were conditions—the location being his own private space, for one—that affected him in a way he refused to acknowledge. The fact was, he was terrified.

*

Something was wrong. The stiffness, the trickle of sweat down one cheek, the complete and utter silence… Ciel was all wrong.

Seeing as how other men were dancing together, Soma had thought to claim a dance with Ciel himself once the earl returned to the dance floor, but not only did he not return to the dance floor, it eventually became clear that he was not returning to the ball itself. Sebastian’s re-entrance had stolen all eyes but most of the guests had been simply captivated by his strong presence and the stunning looks that one never quite grew accustomed to. Soma was willing to bet he was one of the only ones who noticed what was missing—namely, Ciel. Granted, even he almost forgot when Sebastian and the pretty white English rose demonstrated a complicated dance Agni informed him was called the Tango. It was a very evocative dance performed by two very evocative men and it certainly evoked some bold reactions—such as from that odd, feral-mannered servant who began rubbing right up against the girly nobleman. Agni, too, had shown bold favor for the view, his hand brushing lightly over Soma’s lower back right there in public.

Soma, however, thought it a shame that Ciel was missing the masterful display and resolved to go and find his friend—after the dance finished. When he finally managed to tear his eyes from the dancing pair who retired from the floor to the banquet table in tandem, Soma was uncommonly warm—certainly warmer than the dreary weather of this cold country could justify. 

When asked where Ciel might be, Finian was more than happy to escort Soma to the earl’s room. Along the way, he debated out loud whether he should have mentioned it to Sebastian first but then admitted that he couldn’t even look at Sebastian right now without wanting to tear off all his clothes and take a big bite out of that sugar-colored skin. Soma blushed at the comments, but he couldn’t really disagree so he kept to non-commital sounds that seemed to satisfy Finian who was overexcited and eager to talk Soma’s ear off. Only at the beginning of the final hallway did the servant stumble and pause.

“Well, we’re here now, but… it’s not too late to turn back you know. The young master is probably in an awful mood to have left the ball like that. I wonder if he was jealous that Lady Elizabeth danced with Mey-rin? Oh, I hope he’s not mad…”

“Don’t you worry. Just leave Ciel to me!” Soma said with confidence. However, when Finian did just that, and waved him goodbye without taking a single step into the hallway, Soma began to regret the bravado.

There was only one door in the hall, and he stood before it for a few heartbeats too many before rapping weakly on the wood. When he received no response, he decided to peek inside. Encouraged by the faint light that spilled out of the room, he poked his head in and called the earl’s name.

Seated there with an adorable look of surprise and such a typical pose with that teacup in hand, the earl was just too precious. All of Soma’s hesitation melted away and he leaped into the room without further thought, throwing himself at the stationary figure he had been missing.

He was rather used to Ciel’s endearing struggles and unexpected bursts of strength. He didn’t take it personally when the earl shoved him off. That was the way of all small animals. Dogs, monkeys, tigers… they all tried to squirm out of the arms of their adoring humans. Ciel was no different.

This time was, though. It was totally different.

While he could admit that sometimes he was somewhat insensitive to and uncomprehending of the complexity of human emotions, he understood the blatant fear and panic radiating from the young earl. He just didn’t know what the correct answer was. His instinct was to hold tighter to communicate that he was there for Ciel but he resisted it, fearing that doing so would only worsen the situation. Instead, he jerked once in an attempt to let go but Ciel jerked, too, and caused him to freeze.

Eventually, he slowly disengaged himself, disturbed by the sounds of harsh, panting breaths at his ear. After he took a full step back, those breaths calmed and Ciel’s unadorned eye slowly closed as he sought control.

Falling to his knees, Soma reached out to touch Ciel’s leg but stopped his hand short, pawing sadly at the air instead. “Ciel, I’m sorry. What did I do? Are you angry? Ciel, forgive me!”

“There is nothing to forgive, prince,” said a smooth voice from the doorway.

Soma glanced over his shoulder to see Sebastian approaching with a plate of bite-sized deserts in hand.

“Sebastian… I think I hurt him,” said the prince, surprised by the sudden choking sensation as his throat closed over and tears pressed at the corners of his eyes.

“Not at all,” Sebastian said kindly. “My master is simply tired from the rigors of social expectations,” the butler explained, placing the plate down on the table and extending a hand to Soma who still remained on his knees at Ciel’s feet. He let Sebastian help him up, grateful for steadying hands when he swayed slightly. Perhaps it was the comfort of those hands that tempted him to over-balance in the opposite direction and take a moment’s rest against the butler’s sturdy frame. The touch that came around his back, to guide him straight and lead him another step or two away from the recovering Ciel, incited an odd flutter of excitement. “One could never guess it from his practiced grace on the dance floor with Lady Elizabeth but the young master dislikes being held.”

A pinch of jealousy bothered Soma at that comment but he chose to ignore it, focusing instead on the bare beginnings of a hint in those words. Looking back at Ciel, his eyebrows drew together as he tried to imagine what could prompt such a preference and what could have been different this time from all the other times he had hugged his friend.

“I’m fine,” Ciel insisted, his voice dripping with irritation that almost concealed a faint tremor. “Sebastian, serve us cake.”

“As you wish,” the butler responded, gesturing Soma to the bed and carrying the sweets with him. “As there is only one chair, my lord, perhaps you would care to sample the prince’s culture and conduct this tea party upon the bed.”

“That’s a great idea!” Soma enthused, jumping onto the comfortable mattress and crossing his legs. He grinned at Ciel, wondering at the faint blush that bloomed in his pale cheeks. Patting the mattress, he widened his grin to show how pleased he was as the earl skirted around the edge of the bed and climbed up at the head, pulling his knees up. Even as he eyed Soma with suspicion, Sebastian’s movements caught his attention and he was soon distracted by the small cream-puff that was pricked with a little wooden stick and set into his hand.

It was delightful to see Ciel so taken by something as he savored the delicious filling and melting pastry. Soma was just as impressed with the treat.

“These are the new party treats proposed for mass-production by Funtom Confectionary,” Ciel noted.

“Indeed,” said Sebastian, smiling proudly as if Ciel had passed some kind of test. To Soma, it seemed as though he was simply patronizing the young earl into feeling like he had achieved something. Surely Ciel could see it too… But no. Ciel seemed rather pleased with himself. That was kind of cute. “Tonight’s ball seemed like the ideal testing ground. It would have been best if my lord were present to hear the accolades himself, but suffice it to say that the experiment was a success. What do you think, Prince Soma?”

Nodding vigorously, Soma responded in the affirmative but his pastry-filled diction seemed to cause Ciel offence. Swallowing down the latest bite-sized treat, he licked his lips and teeth then repeated himself. “These are ingenious! No knives or forks and yet my fingers aren’t sticky at all! It’s brilliant!”

“The portions are rather small,” Ciel complained.

“Ah, but with so many able to fill a plate, the variety makes up for the lack of volume of any one type of cake,” Sebastian suggested.

Soma agreed, and he suspected Ciel did too, but the earl shrugged and snatched up the last miniature strawberry shortcake. “The shortcake is clearly the best. Who needs variety?”

“Oh, but the creampuffs!” The outburst caught even Soma by surprise but he had been so impressed by the balanced taste and texture of those small, bite-sized delicacies and he was sure Ciel had been too.

With a huff, Ciel tossed the wooden stick onto the plate and gestured for Sebastian to remove it. “Very well. I’ll sign the necessary paperwork in the morning.”

“As you wish,” Sebastian agreed, bowing his head in acquiescence. He retreated with the plate in hand and bowed to both earl and prince before taking his leave.

With a happy sigh, Soma flopped down onto his back, then rolled onto his side, pillowing his head on one arm and thinking to chat with his friend for a while. However, he wavered when he saw the look Ciel was giving him. The earl still had his knees raised protectively before him and seemed to be trying to make himself even smaller in order to increase the distance between them.

“I’m tired,” he said.

“Oh. Shall we take a nap?” Soma asked, letting his head down to the mattress.

Ciel didn’t move. “There’s a ball going on downstairs for your sake. Shouldn’t you be observing it?”

Well, yes, but… “Not if you’re not there.” The one he really wanted to dance with, talk to, and sample food and drink with was tired and resting, thus he too would rest. “The night is still early. If we rest now, we can join back in later on.”

Knowing that Ciel would only further argue, Soma put an end to the debate by closing his eyes and settling more comfortably. He felt a little guilty for forcing Ciel’s hand but he wanted to stay by the earl’s side. Besides, he felt that sleeping side by side like this might deepen their friendship somewhat. If only Ciel would relax and trust him.

He waited. He heard Ciel shift about on the bed. In time, he heard the boy’s body settle fully on the mattress. A little longer and Ciel’s breathing evened out. A little longer and he would have known that his friend was asleep, but Soma fell asleep first.

When he woke, he was face to face with a dreaming cherub. At first, he was reluctant to let go of sleep, as brief as it had been, but once he remembered what he had been doing and was startled to realize he had fallen asleep at all, he woke fully. He wasn’t sure what had roused him, but he was glad.

He traced Ciel’s features with his eyes. Parted lips, plump and pink; rounded curves that would sharpen with age; long, ash-colored lashes that draped to brush the top of one pale, high-boned cheek; the black expanse of a leather eye patch that hid some dismal secret from the cruel, predatory world…

“Ciel.”

Moved by the sadness of his own whisper, Soma ran the very tips of his fingers along the string that held the patch in place, considering drawing it aside. He wondered what kind of scar had been forced upon the child Ciel had been and how it had affected the developing personality that had outgrown the young body.

Withdrawing his fingers, he averted his gaze from the mystery of that patch, knowing that Ciel would never forgive him for peeking at what he deliberately concealed. Instead, his eyes fell on Ciel’s lips, moving ever so slightly apart as he breathed in.

He hadn’t really considered before how much he would like to kiss those lips. He was aware of his attraction to Ciel but knowing the earl’s predisposition for solitude, he knew well enough what the reaction would be. Now, he wondered at the reasons behind the boy’s desire for distance. What Sebastian had said earlier about Ciel disliking being held had been a mild statement but taken in conjunction with the immobilized reaction earlier, Soma felt there was much more to it.

He began to think back over things Ciel had said and done since their meeting. Reactions, mysterious phrases muttered to himself, comments made by Sebastian… Had Ciel come to some harm as a child? Had he been forced into some kind of lewd physical conduct that had left him traumatized and disillusioned?

The thought alone was so awful that tears once again welled in Soma’s eyes. If only Ciel would allow Soma to teach him that there could be joy in touch. If he would just let Soma try and show him…

Before he realized what he planned to do, Soma’s lips were inching towards Ciel’s. He closed the gap with conviction, though, letting his lips mold against Ciel’s soft buds in a kiss that felt so natural that any nerves melted right away.

Several things happened then. First, Soma realized that he had fallen swiftly and deeply into a vast ocean in which he suddenly knew that he was drowning. Next, he identified the root of that metaphor as one oceanic blue eye fluttered open and stared into his own, at which point he realized he had been in love with Ciel for some time now. Simultaneously, his world keeled over as he was rolled onto his back and the ocean view turned volcanic.

“Sebastian,” he breathed.

As if he were standing over Soma’s shoulder at the dinner table rather than pinning him bodily to the bed, Sebastian spoke lightly. “While I appreciate the purity of your motives, I am afraid that the young master is not inclined to accept such advances.” The butler’s mild tone was at first at odds with the fire spitting in his eyes but that gaze, too, calmed as he spoke, cooling to the alluring spark of a star. “If you truly wish to be of value in romantic terms, however, might I suggest an alternative arrangement?”

“Soma.”

The quiet murmur incited a panic in the young prince who turned to look at the boy he had just kissed. Sure enough, Ciel’s fingertips rested upon his lips as if to confirm the kiss, and there was shock in his eyes, implying that he was well aware of what had happened.

“Ciel, I-”

“Shhhh.” Sebastian’s whisper silenced him before the finger ever sealed his lips. His eyes shifted back to the butler poised over him. “There is nothing to forgive, prince,” he said, in repetition of his earlier consolation. “My lord, you are lucky indeed to have such a devoted friend whose only motive in crossing the boundaries you have set is to increase the spectrum of those parameters and let you reap the bounty he perceives to be gained therein.”

“What are you talking about?” Ciel asked, trying to invoke a growl to his voice. Instead, he was thwarted by genuine confusion and the lingering call of sleep.

“Only this, my lord. Prince Soma kindly believes that he can erase the trauma that haunts you by becoming the kind of companion you have been unable to welcome in your life thus far. Unfortunately, he is mistaken.”

“Shouldn’t Ciel decide that for himself?” Soma argued, struggling with an unexpected jolt of energy born of irritation that this servant would make such an assumption with even-

“I have decided.” The quiet phrase from Ciel stole all the fight from Soma who slumped and turned his face to the boy once more. Ciel was sitting up now, smoothing back his hair and watching Soma with a bemused expression. “I neither want nor need a physical companion. Even if I did, Lizzie-”

“You permit yourself to dance with her because she’s no threat—not because you’re stronger or smarter than her, but because you don’t want her. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what scares you so much. Your own desire.”

“Oho.” The amusement in Sebastian’s voice cut like a knife. “You are a sharp little prince, aren’t you? So you see, the young earl of Phantomhive is well aware of his own wants and needs—and all that he does not want or need. Thus, you have a choice. Either you can comply with those wants and needs, or you can be filed under the category of what is neither wanted nor needed. Which will it be?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course I choose the first!”

“My lord, would you care to explain what that choice entails?”

Glaring at Sebastian as if having been saddled with a minor inconvenience such as extra paperwork or a time-draining meeting, Ciel scooted back an inch so that his back rested against the headboard. He let his neck fall back to take the weight of his head and looked down his nose at Soma.

It should have been an insulting posture but Soma saw it for the defensive position that it was. Ciel was afraid that whatever he was about to propose would be met with rejection.

“I won’t allow anyone to touch me,” he said. “Not intimately. If you wish to be of use to me, there is one way.”

“Name it.”

“Let me watch.”

“Watch? Watch what?”

Soma had to admit to having an inkling as to what that might be even before Sebastian’s breath tickled his ear.

“My lord is proposing that you let me stand in for him. It’s a profitable deal, I assure you. Let me transport you to the highest peaks and the deepest trenches of sensation. The Treatise on Pleasure known as the Kamasutra devised by your countryman is only an introductory volume to the cornucopia of sexual prowess I possess.”

The alluring caress of breath around and against his ear and neck and the penetration of that voice to his very core gave Soma a hint of what was being offered to him. A tingle of heat swept through his body, leaving him shivering in its wake. He swallowed, looking to Ciel for confirmation and receiving a terse nod.

“If I were in pursuit of pleasure, Agni is very well versed in—in-”

Soma trailed off as a row of sharp nails dragged lightly up over the thin material that clothed his awakening erection. “Your Khansama may rival the skill of a well-trained concubine—but he lacks finesse.” One nail tip balanced right at the tip of his arousal. The point of contact was so minute and yet the placement and pressure initiated a welling of sensation that soon had Soma breathing heavily. When he gave into the urge to nudge his hips up, the butler’s hand slid obligingly down his covered length, cupping the head in his palm and squeezing it just right to wring a groan from the dazed prince.

“Please.” The breathy whisper sent a desperate pulse through him. “Let me watch you, Soma.”

“Yes.”

It was the only word he could bring himself to speak.

Ciel’s gaze turned stern as his eyes locked onto Sebastian. “Devote yourself to his pleasure as if it were my own.”

“Yes, My Lord.”

The momentary glint of predatory glee might have been real or it might have been imagined but Soma lost track of such thoughts the moment Sebastian’s full attention became his and he sank right to the heart of an undersea volcano.

*

Ciel had always been warier of Soma than he ought to but only now did he understand why. The prince had stumbled right onto a truth Ciel had not yet faced. Lizzie, Druitt, even Lau… They were safe because he had no desire for them. Pluto was under his control—Sebastian’s, anyway—and thus he, too, was safe. Ash made him nervous—that converse resemblance to Sebastian—but the queen’s butler had never laid hands on him.

How was it that Soma could so easily come to a conclusion that had eluded Ciel? How was it that the prince knew him well enough to do so despite Ciel’s attempts to keep him at arm’s length?

He’d failed, though. That much was clear. Soma was always crossing his boundaries and yet had somehow managed not to be shut out of Ciel’s life, and then that kiss… Soma might not have known it but Sebastian was furious. That almost made Ciel want to tempt fate and see what a real kiss from the prince felt like but he and Sebastian had a pact—and it was for his own good as much as for the demon’s satisfaction. He would honor it.

Still, a kiss would hardly tarnish the purity of his soul, would it?

It might, if it was anything like the erotic, besmirching kind of kiss Sebastian was currently bestowing upon Soma. Sebastian had withdrawn all touch except for the press of his lips and delving of his tongue, forcing Soma’s attention to focus solely on that contact. The tactic was working wonders judging by the continuous hum of a moan sounding in the prince’s fine tenor.

Again and again, their lips parted and collided around their twined tongues. Ciel had the impression that Sebastian was sucking on Soma’s tongue now and again; a theory backed up by the rising frequency of that hum and broken catches in his breath.

In fact, when the kiss finally came to a soft and tender end, Soma was gasping for breath through his swollen red lips. His expression was startled, as if he’d never known a kiss could be quite so intense.

Ciel knew. He’d seen it whenever Sebastian joined lips with another, as if the demon were engaging with his partner’s very soul.

When Sebastian tipped Soma’s face aside to suckle on the dark skin of his neck, those strange olive eyes met Ciel’s and held them. There was some kind of emotion mixed into the message of lust in that gaze and it tickled that nervous instinct in Ciel’s body even as it stoked the fire of his arousal.

For the first time, he was self-conscious as he let his hand travel to his erection and lightly fondled himself through his clothes. In reaction, Soma pulled his lower lip between his teeth and released it slowly, leaving it slightly agleam in the dim light. A moment later, his head tipped backwards as Sebastian did something to raise the stakes. Ciel hadn’t been paying attention, captivated as he was by Soma’s stare.

Upon inspection, Soma’s clothes had been disrupted enough that Sebastian could lick at one nipple by pulling the neckline as low as it would go while his fingers slipped up under the hem to play with the other. Ciel’s eyebrows drew together just slightly as he wondered what felt so good about that. Gingerly, he slipped his free hand beneath the material caressing his own skin to mirror the action. He rubbed, rolled, and then pinched, surprised at the pang of sensation that shot through various nerves. A little wistfully, he wondered how much more potent Sebastian’s touch might be. If Soma’s state was any indication, he was definitely missing out.

Soma’s fingers were entangled in Sebastian’s hair, mussing up the perfect styling of silken black strands in a way that only made the usually-impeccable butler that much sexier. The prince’s back was arched up and his abdomen rose and fell in sharp pants. His eyelids fluttered and there was tension in his neck.

Ciel was surprised when his eyes shot open and Soma groaned. “Ciel,” he seemed to breathe, but the utterance was almost soundless. His arm reached out, though; his fingers grasping towards Ciel.

The earl stared at them for a moment, then studied Soma’s desperate gaze, and finally he gave up the unsatisfactory touch to his own chest and extended his hand. Soma caught his fingers and held them tight as Sebastian slid further down his torso, placing chaste kisses to the material that covered a rather generous endowment—or so Ciel surmised by the size of that tent.

*

Alternating between amusement at the touching display of puppy love and the occasional flaring of possessive fury, Sebastian might have put a little more spirit into the foreplay than was strictly necessary. Soma was already on the verge of release and he hadn’t even tasted the prince’s best delicacy yet. If this show was to last, he would have to cool the prince off a bit—without having the same effect on the avidly watching Ciel.

One tactic came to mind. Without more warning that an anticipatory grin, Sebastian surged up and clamped his teeth down on the prince’s hip. Even he could not have predicted that the bite would backfire with such explosive results.

Crying out, Soma went into a spasm, his lower body seizing up spectacularly as a dark stain spread across the tented silk of his pants. He came down heavily, gasping and trembling, and remained silent for a few stunned moments before coming to his senses.

“You bit me! And now my pants are ruined!”

Bemused, Sebastian tilted his head at the dire masochist. “Only because you loved it,” he retorted, bringing the point home with a lick to the salty stain. “I assure you I am well equipped to clean up such a lack of discipline—have no fear for your attire, prince.”

Irritated by his miscalculation on top of the existing frustrations, Sebastian was not in the mood for further scolding—either from a piqued Soma or from Ciel who would jump on any excuse to criticize—and thus decided to shut them both up in one fell swoop. He extracted Soma from his clothes as he might slip a dirty cloth from a laden table, and then fell upon the undiminished erection that proved Soma’s excitement had only grown.

He might have guessed that the prince was highly sensitive but that masochistic streak had taken him by surprise. He supposed it was mostly his fault for working the prince up so far that a bite registered just enough pleasure and surprise to push him over the edge.

The demon figured he might as well continue the way he had started. Even as he sucked hard on the straining cock in his mouth, he slipped a hand beneath the prince and began to massage the hole he planned to take with two nimble fingers.

*

Soma felt as if he were suffocating—and he was, but only because he had forgotten how to breathe. Following that bright burst of unexpected ecstasy, he had almost immediately become immersed in a wet, hot vacuum the likes of which he had never even imagined. Every fiber of his being was concentrated on his groin and the incredible and constant sensation there.

When it stopped, he almost sobbed with the loss. It took him some time to register the hand pumping away to maintain a sense of friction, as well as the tongue spearing into his slack entrance. He was so wrapped up in the attentions lavished on his manhood that the natural instinct to tighten against invasion was over-ridden.

Ciel must think all sorts of awful things about him; that he was a loose, perverted whore of a man who couldn’t keep his head straight long enough to control his own body, for starters. He was almost ashamed to seek the earl’s gaze again but he did anyway; he had to see if that oceanic gaze was trained on him in judgment.

To his everlasting gratitude, there was no judgment in Ciel’s one beautiful eye. Instead, there was only awe and longing. Ciel’s fist worked furiously upon the length now exposed to Soma’s hungry observation. The need in that blue gaze and in the flurry of motion, strained breath, and twitching muscles resonated with the sensations consuming Soma as Sebastian’s mouth returned to his cock and two fingers crawled up inside of him. Instead of seizing up, his whole body went lax as he opened himself up to the pleasure and welcomed it, shooting another load of seed down Sebastian’s welcoming throat and squeezing Ciel’s fingers tightly in an effort to convey some of what he felt.

*

Instead of speeding up and catching onto the trailing threads of an orgasm that was just out of reach, Ciel stilled his fist and took several deep breaths. His fingers returned Soma’s tight grip and his eyes roamed the scene before him. If not for that grip, he might think that Soma had passed out, so still was his body. Eventually, a deep billowing of tightly maintained stomach muscles and a ragged sound of intake signaled the prince’s struggle for control of his body. Belatedly, with that breath, a tight ripple ran through his lower half, and then a subtle jerk. Another deep breath and the tremors stilled.

Ignoring all of this, Sebastian worked his fingers in and out of Soma’s ass, licking his lips and lapping at remnants of seed leaking down Soma’s somewhat deflated erection. Even half-hard, Soma was larger than Ciel thought he himself might ever be.

As Sebastian worked and Ciel watched closely, Soma’s cock responded little by little to the continued stimulation, inflating once more and stretching back up toward his belly. Ciel longed to touch it and feel that growth in his hand. Instead, he slowly resumed touching himself and tried to imagine a little more length and girth—as if it were Soma he stroked.

*

The prince was far from virginal. His body easily accepted two of Sebastian’s fingers and the demon added digits until all four were crammed inside, his thumb pressing at the base of the prince’s swollen balls.

It was just the slightest touch of sadism that prompted Sebastian to let his nails extend into talons and very lightly caress the flesh at his disposal. Soma’s reaction was subdued, almost thoughtful, as if he couldn’t quite understand why Sebastian’s fingers should feel so sharp and long. Then the talons retracted and Sebastian deliberately stroked all four fingers in a downward motion from as deep as he could reach, slowly pressing and pulling until a firm patch corresponded with a cry and a twitch that indicated he had found the prince's prostate.

Lazily supporting his chin on his free hand, he worked that spot, alternately stroking or circling. His gaze shifted between the prince’s face—neck straining, his mouth was wide open to the ceiling, his eyelids closed tight—and his steadily leaking erection. Every so often, he would spurt a little, with a whimper or a moan. His head began rolling from side to side as if it was almost too much to bear, but he issued not a single word.

“Sebastian.” Ciel’s tongue was thick and clumsy, his voice gruff and muffled until he cleared his throat. “Stop playing with your food.”

It was an interesting choice of words. Sebastian had no intention of consuming this little princeling and his haughty, self-centered ways. Ciel was the only meal on the menu… Which, of course, the little lord knew. The food he referred to was himself. He was just as haughty and selfish as the prince at most times, as evidenced in his assumption that Sebastian’s goal was to toy indirectly with him, not with Soma.

Fool. Those words could be taken many ways. If Sebastian chose to take them as a direct order, he might very well consider it a loophole in the contract. Ciel was his food. To stop playing with him meant to go ahead and devour him.

For just a moment, it was tempting. Not yet, though. There was still so much more flavor to be infused.

“Yes, My Lord,” he said dutifully, inspiring a powerful orgasm and a jet of semen before withdrawing his fingers.

Kissing and fondling his way up Soma’s trembling body, Sebastian denied him the kiss that was expected. Instead, he slid to the left, then rolled Soma’s hip, levering his own body in behind so that the prince lay on his side, facing Ciel. Sebastian was facing Ciel, too, and he smiled slowly at the earl whose eyes skimmed over Soma and unerringly sought those of his sworn servant. The smile Sebastian wore for him was a predatory sort that hinted at secrets of what he was about to do to the Indian prince.

Wrapping one hand firmly around Soma’s cock, Sebastian shifted his hips until he had the right angle. “Are you ready?” he asked. The choked reply was indecipherable but clearly affirmative.

Pulling Soma’s slightly sweat-dampened hair off his neck, Sebastian pressed a lingering kiss to the side of his throat, his eyes trained on Ciel, and without further ado, he pressed forward. Slowly, he inched inside, shifting for traction now and again.

Soon, the prince was pushing back, seeking fulfillment until every inch of Sebastian was fully sheathed inside of him. Still, he seemed to want more. If the demon let his assumed shape stretch and expand a little to meet Soma’s needs, who was to know?

There was no urgency. After having his prostate milked so thoroughly, Soma had finally gained some longevity against Sebastian’s tactics and the stimulation of Ciel’s devouring eyes. Sebastian rocked gently, just holding the prince’s cock at the base. It was enough.

Meanwhile, he felt Ciel’s eyes slip from him and return to Soma. The silent dialogue between them was palpable enough even though he could only witness one half of it.

The sudden urgency in Ciel’s twisting, rushing fist and the little snaps of his hips held Soma captivated. When Ciel came (rather powerfully), Sebastian felt the vibration of a very deep moan hum through the body pressed up against his.

He chose his moment well. As soon as Ciel’s body sagged with the release of tension, Sebastian snuck his free arm beneath the prince and wrapped it around a lithe torso, holding Soma to him firmly as he began to pump faster and harder, seeking a swift but gradual peak.

Soma climbed with him, of course, but Sebastian’s hand around the base of his cock tightened fractionally the harder he thrust, until the pressure denied the prince an orgasm.

Sebastian’s enjoyment was more amusement than pleasure. He could see the wheel’s turning in Ciel’s head. _“Devote yourself to his pleasure as if it were my own,”_ he had said. Now he wondered if this was how Sebastian would treat him—and then, because he had total confidence in Sebastian's absolute compliance to his orders, the earl began to imagine what might become of Soma in the endgame and his hungry little arousal rose like a puppet on a string.

*

Tears of frustration leaked across Soma’s face, down into the bed covers. He had already cum so many times but he was so hard he ached. Sebastian had stopped still, the girth of his erection pressed up against that spot that made sparks fly.

“Please,” Soma whimpered. “Please, let me-”

“Shhh.” Sebastian shushed him with a kiss to his jaw. “All in good time.”

The slow, deliberate drag against his insides as Sebastian pulled out extracted a few more whimpers but Soma was too desperate to demand and order as he usually might. He couldn’t summon an iota of authority to his voice right now, so he complied, lying on his back and breathing hard because that was all he could do with Sebastian holding his ability to orgasm captive.

His urgent need subsided in response to a very unexpected thing. As if his groin wasn’t soiled with semen, Ciel crawled over and curled up at Soma’s side, the picture of innocence. It should have been stimulating but instead it was heartwarming, and that helped to bring things down a notch.

Then Soma remembered that Ciel struggled with such closeness and he was afraid to move in case he caused another bout of panic. Who had dared to lay hands on a prepubescent child? Whose filthy actions had hardened Ciel into the ruthless agent of the English queen that sometimes scared even Soma? What had they done to him?

Little by little, his erection faded to bearable and Sebastian’s hand was gone before he noticed. Hesitantly, Soma placed an arm around the earl, cradling him ever so gently.

“Thank you,” Ciel whispered, looking up at him with wide, hapless eyes.

Soma didn’t care if it was an act—it very well might be. He didn’t care because what mattered at that moment was that Ciel had not only consented to but even sought his touch. The level of trust that indicated meant a great deal, and that, Soma cared about. The little earl’s arousal poked at his hip, bringing the warmth of a blush to his cheeks and he began to wonder what purpose he was being strung along for.

“Sebastian,” he said, tempering his voice until it gained almost the usual note of princely authority. “What are you waiting for?”

“If you’re quite done playing dolly, there is an urgent matter to attend to, my prince, my lord.”

Ciel moved first and then Soma raised himself up, drinking in the sight laid out before him—Sebastian, to be precise. The butler was stretched out, unashamedly fondling his stiff length with one arm pillowing his head. He smirked lazily at them.

Regaining his usual aloof air, Ciel snorted, but it was clear what he really thought. His eyes devoured Sebastian’s form in a manner that gave away his deepest desire.

Soma’s innards cramped with jealousy. He deliberately turned his attention from Ciel to the waiting butler and had to admit that he was not, himself, unaffected. Surveying the long limbs and graceful lines and curves that made up this spectacular specimen of a man, Soma’s body quickly remembered the urgent state from which it had been temporarily distracted.

A little nest of pillows sat beside Sebastian in preparation for the earl and he invited Ciel to make use of it, even as he reached out a hand to Soma and pulled him closer. It was easy to see what he had in mind.

Sebastian had denied Soma completion so that they could play out one more scenario. He meant for Soma to ride him, directly facing Ciel. It was as exciting a prospect as it was daunting but one look at Ciel’s eager expression overrode embarassment.

Poising above the butler, Soma pressed his weight into the hand that was still held in Sebastian’s, leaning onto it as he dragged his scrotum back and forth along the perfect length jutting from a pretty patch of black curls. If he was to play the seductress, he would have some revenge for the exquisite torture to which he had been subjected.

*

If Sebastian had expected the prince to succumb to his lead, he was only half right. Soma quickly got the idea but there was no question of succumbing. Suspicions of the nature of Soma’s relationship with his khansama were verified as the prince made it his mission to stir Sebastian’s passions to a level that matched his own frustrated state of heightened arousal. If Agni was just a tool for the prince’s pleasure, there was no reason for Soma to have learned such tricks and turns.

He used his body to the fullest of its potential, twisting and writhing, employing his thighs and butt cheeks just as handily as his fingers and tongue. He was a snake charmer and Sebastian the snake. Even the audience was caught up in his spell if Ciel’s little gasps and whimpers gave anything away.

Unbinding his hair which had bunched up in a horrific mess, Soma ran his hands through it, letting it spill over his shoulders. It was such a simple change but it transformed his innocent features and added depth and maturity, highlighting his unusual eyes.

He nipped at Sebastian’s throat and there was some wicked pheromone in him that caused the demon to snarl in reaction. Chuckling, the prince then bit the corner of Sebastian’s lip, making him snap his teeth. With a fearless gaze, Soma sat up and extended his hand before Sebastian’s mouth, daring him to bite as one might an unruly dog—or in the prince’s case, a tiger.

Sebastian was no wild animal to give in to such tactics but he played along, growling and baring his teeth until the moment Soma’s fingers slipped between them, at which point he subsided. With a lick, he gently closed his teeth over the pocket of flesh lining the outside of the prince’s palm.

Meeting that olive gaze, he gradually increased the pressure until it became painful but Soma did not scold him or cry out. His eyes flashed and his abs heaved with a laden gasp. He hissed, but the breath passed through a smile.

Sebastian’s lips curved into an answering smile around the flesh in his mouth. It seemed they had finally found common ground.

*

Soma’s masochism was no secret to himself. He and Agni had discovered this particular aphrodisiac long before Sebastian had unwittingly stumbled across it. However, he was particular about being in control; he demanded when and where his lover might bite, scratch, or bruise.

Astute as he was, the butler caught on quickly, following his prompts a little too gleefully. If he had sought to rile up the beast within this refined and restrained man, Soma had succeeded spectacularly. When he led a hand to his hip, Sebastian gripped tightly enough to bruise. When Soma leaned over his face, the butler’s teeth clenched about his nipple, sucking hard through the bite. When he tucked his face into a lean shoulder, Sebastian took hold of his hair and pulled, then yanked, stretching his neck back and kissing him hard with teeth as well as tongue.

All the while, Soma was in control. If he pulled back, Sebastian conceded the motion and waited for the next prompt. His erection throbbed between Soma’s thighs, indicating his intoxication with the game.

When he was satisfied that Sebastian was just as hard and horny as he himself, Soma took that throbbing length in his hand and pushed the tip inside of himself, holding it steady as he sat back and took Sebastian in to the hilt. His world spun for a moment and he felt the oddest sensation of a balloon swelling slightly inside of him as he adjusted.

“Soma.”

Only Ciel could achieve such an authoritative command in one word even while palming himself so aggressively—or so Soma decided once he opened his eyes and took in the sight at that reminder of the boy who had started all this. Breathlessly, Soma felt the need to confess in that moment.

“We’re all a little broken, aren’t we?” he said, gasping as Sebastian shifted deliberately. “You have your trauma, Agni his utter submission, Sebastian his games… and me, this strange desire for controlled pain. Since I was a child-” A little jolt struck him as Sebastian gave an insistent little bounce but he did his best to ignore it. “The threshold between pain and pleasure has always fascinated me.” Biting his lip as Sebastian’s hips began to roll under him, Soma took the hint and rolled his own hips in small motions. “Does it disturb you?” he pressed, needing to hear the answer. “It disturbed Agni at first—perhaps even now.”

Ciel shook his head. “Does my watching disturb you?” he asked.

Soma gasped and threw back his head, increasing the movement of his hips as desire exceeded emotion. He shook his head belatedly in response, his eyes closed as he rose and fell, rocking back and forth like a ship cresting the waves. “I like it,” he whispered.

Sebastian gripped his wrist, his thumb pressing against the pulse point, and Soma nodded fractionally, giving permission. Pressing his thumb into that painful spot, the butler pulled Soma down to lie atop him, nipping his ear and then whispering loudly enough for the earl to hear. “Then perhaps we can come to an understanding. There is much I can give you that Agni cannot—and much you can do for Ciel in return.”

All Soma could manage was a little cry as Sebastian struck his sweet spot and a tidal wave began to rise up within him. Belatedly, he nodded, and then cried out for the boy he wished he could share this sensation with. “Ciel!”

*

It was the first time—the first time anyone had called his name in the throes of pleasure. Hearing his own name crack with wanton need, Ciel pinched his nipple hard and thrust up into his hand. As pleasure welled up in him, he stuttered a name—almost the wrong one—and then ejaculated all over his tense fist. “S-…Soma.”

*

A demon could get used to having a sexually adept prince ride him ragged to vent some of that pent-up tension born of hunger. He could certainly get used to exploiting a minor fetish for abuse to vent some of those violent urges. What he could not endure was the simpering bond forming over his head or the directions in which that might lead. Ciel was his and his alone, and he would remain pure and unsullied as promised. To that end, Sebastian would play along with this charade until someone else ripped that blossoming bond to shreds. Agni would do very well for that role.

Imagining the tragic, heartbreaking finale, Sebastian raked his nails down Soma’s hip as he thrust deep and hard and pumped his essence into the vessel of his forming grudge. A second later, Soma went rigid, a wordless cry wringing from his lips before he collapsed over Sebastian, panting harshly. 

*

Meanwhile, drunk guests mingled with drunker household staff. Dancing partners drifted off to private spots in the manor to become partners of another kind. Polite conversation degenerated into lewd stories.

Only one man retired alone to the chambers he shared with his prince, ashamed of himself for the jealousy that accompanied his suspicions as to that prince's whereabouts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ^_^; This is what happens when I write past the 12-page average with long delays between plot development and getting on with the lemons. In the course of this chapter, Soma went from a chirpy little cinnamon roll to a degenerate masochist. Not quite what I'd planned but it's too late to take it all back.
> 
> I did have a lot of fun playing with the ball. Can you guess who wandered off with whom?


	5. To Die, to Sleep. No more.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ciel may or may not be enjoying an evening at the opera as the tale of Faust is woven onstage but he's strangely lacking in objection to the intrusion of a certain uptight shinigami. Sebastian is pleased by developments until the young earl's mood takes an unexpected turn. He finds himself in a rather unsavory situation, fighting to stay the leading man in Ciel's own little opera of a life.
> 
> Sebastian/William  
> Sebastian+Ciel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's not bandy about, Sebastian may respect aesthetics but he is still a being of pure evil. It's not written to be confrontational but there are essentially elements of rape/non-con in this chapter. I urge you not to read if you harbor any personal trauma regarding such matters.

   
As interesting as it could sometimes be to play naughty little games with Ciel and all his dirty little friends, the level of enjoyment was to Sebastian as of watching an opera about a demon harvesting souls in comparison to actually glutting himself.   
   
It was an empathetic kind of enjoyment. It was rather satisfying to promote the spread of corruption, but it wasn't personally thrilling. Perhaps with one or two momentary exceptions...  
   
That sentiment took a rather drastic turn one rainy night at the opera. At first, Sebastian was rather disgruntled by the interruption to Méphistophélès' rather delightful rendition of Le veau d'or—particularly as the interrupting party was none other than that self-righteous prig of a shinigami whose gardening tool of a death scythe was about as threatening as a rapier made of bread.   
   
Brusquely appearing atop the railing of the premium box balcony reserved for the Phantomhive estate, William T. Spears pretentiously adjusted his glasses as he gazed down on the crowd. Seated beside his lord just in front of the thick curtain that provided privacy to part of the box for conducting of business and the like, Sebastian stiffened involuntarily. His fingers twitched and dug into the luscious padding of the chair, and he leaned forward fractionally.  
   
It was all he could do not to give in to the infernal urge to rend the shinigami limb from useless, lanky limb. What he felt when he looked on their kind might be more understandable to the human mind when a comparison was made to the rapist of an innocent little girl frolicking in a field of flowers. Wasteful. Despicably and atrociously wasteful.   
   
He was incensed just to think of the myriad souls gathered and left to rot for eternity; most half rotten to begin with of course, but some precious few one-of-a-kind delicacies discarded along with the rest like so much tripe. Those vile reapers hovered around Ciel like nervous hens who would rather peck their own eggs apart than watch them pilfered for the farmer's table; never mind that the farmer had dedicated his life to the raising of those hens and the eggs that were their dowry.  
   
Alerted to the transparency of his hatred by Ciel's equally transparent disapproving glare, Sebastian schooled himself as he must and relaxed into the chair. He let out a slow, soft breath before drawling, "If My Lord wanted to gaze at an ass, he would have purchased a donkey, not an opera booth."  
   
The candidate asses in question—both the flat, bony lump of flesh and the rest of the metaphorical ass in control of it—clenched up like virginal clams; though no clam could blush quite that prettily. William sure showed a lot of color in his cheeks for a dead man.  
   
With a clearing of the throat and tweaking of his glasses, the shinigami shot Sebastian a filthy glare then let it slide to Ciel with a slight upturn of the nose before turning his attention upon the crowd once more. “I’ve no time to deal with you. There are several souls scheduled for-”   
   
Whatever was scheduled for those several souls, young Ciel would never hear, because Sebastian—perfectly in time with a phenomenal clamor from the stage below—almost took William’s head off with a chair that had supposedly been bolted to the floor just moments prior.  
   
Pleased with his neat and subtle handy work, the demon collected his prey and hauled it over his shoulder, pulling the cord that allowed the curtains to close and then tugging it free for good measure. He used it to bind the unconscious shinigami’s hands behind his back.   
   
Surveying his handiwork, he clapped his hands together as if to rid them of both contamination and nuisance, then made to rejoin his Lord. Before he could step up to the curtain, a little Ciel-shaped hole appeared and then closed behind the earl.  
   
“I’m bored,” the boy complained.  
   
“My Lord? I had thought you would enjoy the nuisances of the story if not-”  
   
“The soprano is sharp, the demon’s performance is dull, and the subject matter is better delegated to nightmares and penny dreadfuls,” muttered the boy, his eyes on the bound being at Sebastian’s feet.  
   
Sebastian couldn’t deny that the soprano was sharp more often than not but he rather thought that the demon’s performance was not so much dull as pale in comparison to having the real thing by one’s side. As for the subject matter… Ciel loved it. Perhaps a little too much…  
   
His skin was a touch pink, his gaze a bit disconnected, his stance imperfect.   
   
He wasn’t bored; he was randy.  
   
"As you say, My Lord," Sebastian conceded with a bow. "It was insensitive of me to miscalculate the... stimulation... such a performance might provide."  
   
"Well? What are you going to do about it?" Ciel demanded with a pridefully turned up nose as if to deflect the implication of Sebastian's words.  
   
The demon's eyes slipped toward his unconscious captive. For one brief moment he was overcome with disgust but this was no filthy canine demon... This was a divine being. A scavenger, yes, but one who thrived on cleanliness, organization, clockwork schedules, and... pride.  
   
There it was, that juicy sin that could be so rewarding to annihilate, and William T. Spears was brimming with it.  
   
"Perhaps a private spectacle would suffice?" Sebastian suggested.  
   
Ciel frowned at the shinigami then turned the dissatisfied expression upon his butler. "You expect to waste my time waiting for him to wake up?"  
   
"Who said anything about waiting?" asked Sebastian.  
   
With a crooked grin, he hooked two fingers into his tie and loosened it in that carefree manner that got Ciel's blood boiling. It was time for some real fun.  
   
*  
   
There was a strange clash of sensation. Noise registered first; sharp warblings and deep rumblings that encouraged the pounding in his head. There were more pleasant sounds, though. Ones that floated in more acceptably mediocre ranges, resonating with a pleasurable hum somewhere around his mid-section. It took longer to become aware of the harsher rasp of breath from nearby that brought his attention to a scratching around his wrists and tightness in his shoulders.  
   
There was cold air on his skin but parts of him felt warm and flushed...particularly where there was motion...inside...  
   
"What are you doing to me?" Will gasped.  
   
All at once, the various pieces of information and memory coalesced into understanding. He was at the opera and the last thing he remembered coherently was explaining to Ciel Phantomhive and his despicable pet demon that he was on a time-sensitive mission entirely unrelated to their presence and would require them to stay out of his way. Then he heard a faint "whoosh" and his head exploded.  
   
He now gathered that he was bound and naked—no doubt the work of the false butler—and, worse, that he was being violated. At first, he accepted that conclusion with the cold rationality of a man accustomed to acting calmly upon solid calculations. However, he quickly grew aware of the shameful reaction of his body and that shame incited multiple waves of emotion, ranging from frustration to anger to despair, until he groaned in understanding of exactly what Sebastian was doing to him and what that meant to him.  
   
There wasn't a single molecule of his rational mind that desired the demon, or any kind of physical relations whatsoever, for that matter. He had neither time nor use for such things. Yet his body was still very much human in so much as it desired physical contact and stimulation. He could not deny that Sebastian's appearance was as pleasing as a male form could ever get. Even so, it seemed his traitorous body was all too willing to respond to so much as the basest of touch, deprived as it was.  
   
As a result of his writhing in a futile struggle against crude bonds to assess his chances of escape, William's crotch grazed and humped against the ground. The carpet was uncomfortable against his skin but the pressure was mortifyingly desirous. He fought against the urge to buck intentionally whenever those spark flew but even in trying to lay still, the constant weight of his body pressing him into the hard floor (coupled with a slight rocking from behind and within that he tried not to think about) deepened the expanding well of excitement in his groin.  
   
"Stop," he gasped, turning his cheek to the side to try and catch a glimpse of the demon behind him and dislodging his precariously hanging glasses with the motion.   
   
There was no response, except for a little jolt from the fingers invading his body; a sensation to which William's attention was immediately diverted. His hardness was not simply the result of being naked on his belly. There was far more to it than that. For however long while he was unconscious, Sebastian had begun violating him with gentle strokes of his fingers, wet with some substance William didn't want to consider, and his ministrations were skilled enough to build pleasure within a man unaccustomed to the sensation of foreign probes in his anus.  
   
William groaned again and pressed his forehead flat against the floor, taking a deep breath. It only made things worse, stoking the fire, so he let it   
out shakily and focused on shallow, even breathing for a few seconds. His vision was blurred without glasses so he kept his eyes closed and tried to calm himself.  
   
It was no use reasoning with a demon. If Sebastian even had any concept of rape, William's appeal of his unwillingness would only spur the vicious being on.   
   
He couldn't just lie there and submit, though. It was so vile, so personal, so... new. The thing was, William had never... well, any of it. It wasn't that he had never experienced an erection or sunk so far as to explore the feel of it... but he had never truly masturbated, let alone had sexual relations with another. In fact, he had never so much as had an orgasm.  
   
Nobody would ever believe that, of course. Supposedly wet dreams were unavoidable among young boys or even grown men who were sexually deprived, and yet, William had never had that problem. He had exhibited strict control over his dreams since he was young. He avoided foods that encouraged amorous behavior and he dodged stimulation at all costs. As a shinigami, it had become even easier to pretend that sex simply didn't exist. Well, as long as Grell wasn't around, that was. That deviant went out of his way to try and seduce William but his overt sexuality was such a turn off that it never turned into a problem.  
   
This was a problem. Sebastian was no Grell. He was subtle, refined, inherently desirable to every dark corner of the psyche, and his fingers were apparently made of pure magic.  
   
Even knowing that it would mean absolutely nothing to his aggressor, William begged.   
   
"Please," he found himself uttering. "Don't do this to me. I don't... I can't... I haven't..."  
   
"Just let go..."  
   
The silken whisper at his ear almost unclenched something within him that William hadn't even known he had been holding taut all that time. He shuddered and tightened every muscle in his body to postpone the unknown something that he knew would tear through him the moment he relaxed.  
   
Sebastian was good. He sensed Will's resistance and laid the fingers of his free hand just beneath the wrists bound at the shinigami's back. Slowly, he stroked downward with such a gentle pressure that William's muscles instinctively relaxed and when those fingers brushed over the slight curve at the junction of his lower back and buttocks, William bucked and flailed and cried out as something so intensely pleasurable it became painful rushed from his groin into his thighs, belly, and out, right to the tips of his toes and the roots of his hair.  
   
He gasped heavily around some scrap of linen that had found its way between his teeth, his wide eyes staring blindly at the thick carpet in shock and disbelief. His body was still trembling and little tremors still wracked his lower half. He had absolutely no control over the tears that followed, no breath with which to protest, no will with which to battle.  
   
He was entirely at Sebastian's mercy.  
   
*  
   
None of Sebastian's partners under Ciel's patronage had ever been unwilling. Even the viscount he had partially tortured had been a willing victim. This was different.   
   
Sebastian found himself surprisingly approving of the curl of distaste to Ciel's lips. Some demons considered rape to be the ultimate entertainment. Sebastian found it uncouth much in the same way that some humans enjoyed crass limericks and others eloquently written sonnets. Yet, to have a being so powerful and so hated completely in his control like this was such a heady experience that he was rock hard and hard-pressed not to drool a little.  
   
He never doubted for a moment that William was a virgin, even when he had been alive. He was so incredibly uptight in so many ways that it would have, in fact, been hard to believe otherwise. He expected the protestations once the shinigami regained his wits but he hadn't imagined they could be so feeble—not for lack of earnest, but rather for the understanding of their futility.  
   
William could do nothing to stop this from happening and he knew it. Because of who and what they were, that power felt incredible to Sebastian. It was the difference between watching an opera and acting in it himself—not quite living it, but living out the motions, at the very least. He wanted more.  
   
"Stop."  
   
The order was soft, lacking in directive if not conviction, but it was an order none-the-less and the intent was clear. Sebastian removed his fingers with the controlled precision of one who could not disobey even if he yearned to.  
   
"Is there a problem, My Lord?" he questioned as obligated. It was the weeping, he was sure. Ciel was never one to tolerate displays of weakness.  
   
To Sebastian's surprise—a perpetual hazard of his contract with Ciel—the little lord dropped his cane and sank to his knees by the shinigami's head. He pulled William's face into his lap—tears, snot, sobbing, and all—and stroked the man's hair in an almost parental fashion.  
   
"It felt wonderful, didn't it?" he questioned. "I can only imagine. I'll never get to experience the touch of Sebastian's fingers for myself, only my own... but I can imagine. I remember my first release, though. There was nothing like it. All the anger and hatred I'd carried in my belly for so long purged for just a few incredible moments. It comes back too quickly, but those few moments of freedom... You've been around a long time, haven't you? Longer than me, obviously, and longer than most people could imagine, I'm sure. You've been carrying all of that humanity around with you for so long... it's no wonder you can't control yourself. Not to worry. It will pass soon."  
   
Sebastian stared in abject shock. It hadn't even occurred to him that William's tears might be a response triggered by the absolute freedom of orgasm after denying himself for as long as he had been alive (so to speak). He was both disappointed and somewhat intrigued. Perhaps the human sex drive had a practical   
purpose beyond procreation after all. Perhaps there was even logic to the ridiculous capacity for desire some people seemed to possess. It was a fascinating concept that would require more contemplation...but not now.  
   
The flow of tears had finally come to a stop and Ciel was using the corner of the handkerchief that had been hastily stuffed into William's mouth when he threatened to outdo a warbling tenor to wipe the lenses of his discarded glasses. It meant William craning his neck back so his chin balanced atop one small thigh but the boy put them back on top of their captor's nose anyway, balancing them carefully.  
   
"You can untie him now," he instructed, running his hands through short brown hair again, his eyes on the confused and weary shinigami.  
   
Sebastian, of course, did as he was told, standing and taking a step back as William moaned with the improvement of blood flow to his limbs and rolled gratefully onto his back, his head still pillowed in Ciel's lap. His crotch was a mess, rubbed red against the carpet and splotched with semen. The carpet was quite ruined, causing the butler to sigh. He was going to have to cover that up somehow to preserve Ciel's essential reputation.  
   
Meanwhile, the awe on William's face was so exaggerated as to be comical. Sebastian expected him to stammer out some stupid question like, "You mean, I don't have to be ashamed by my desires?" "It's really OK to masturbate?" "I won't be punished for being a dirty boy?" But he was still the same old William and he maintained control of himself after a fashion. Slowly, he reached up to touch Ciel's cheek in gratitude or the like.  
   
"I've been a fool," he muttered. "I see that now, though I wish it hadn't taken your godforsaken creature to open my eyes."  
   
Sebastian almost wanted to sigh. It had been fun while it lasted.  
   
"Well, at least he's good for something," Ciel responded with a chuckle that very nearly brought an angry flush to Sebastian's cheeks. Ungrateful little sod. Considering all that Sebastian did for him day in day out, from lacing up his boots to crushing the bones of his enemies...!  
   
William's eyes drifted to him, then, and there was a look in them Sebastian had never seen before. He was quite convinced it was in fact an entirely new feature for those eyes, usually so calm, calculating, and full of disdain.  
   
Now, he saw in them a twinkling of fascination and a pinch of heat smattered with rapid consideration. When next he spoke, it was with a remarkably straight face. "It has nothing to do with love. I don't even like you." Sebastian snorted, about to scold him for stating the obvious, but then the shinigami moved, sitting up and positioning his lanky form in such a way that it peaked the interest of the voyeur in Sebastian. He expected Will to be uncomfortable in his soiled nakedness but instead the shinigami had begun to find the confidence he was usually in such disproportionate possession of. "And yet, clearly my body has no objection to your touch... or the look of you, if I'm to be honest."  
   
"I'm touched. All my sins forgiven for the sake of a pretty face then, is it?" Sebastian sneered, disliking how quickly his power over this enemy was slipping away.  
   
"Hardly," William snapped, his expression darkening with anger. He visibly fought it down and resumed control over his features. "I haven't forgotten for a moment what you are, and I'll remember it for eternity. The way you manipulated me against my will... You reek of evil, foul creature."  
   
Sebastian's head tilted at those words and the tiniest hint of a smile cocked upon his lips. "I do believe we just discovered a streak of the masochist in you..."  
   
Nothing else could explain the flush in William's cheeks as he expounded upon just how distasteful he found the attentions of a demon... a flush that corresponded directly with a twitch of rejuvination in his crotch. The play of expressions was clear. The more he thought on how much he detested demonic kind and Sebastian in particular, the more turned on he became, until he was glaring at Sebastian with a full erection jutting between his thighs.  
   
"I've spent my entire existence both dead and alive ignoring the urges of my flesh," he pointed out.  
   
It was rather obvious to Sebastian that it was himself he was trying to convince.   
   
"So ignore them," Sebastian purred, standing over the shinigami just to see what would happen. William simply continued to glare, his mouth glued shut, so Sebastian began unbuttoning his shirt, having already shucked his coat to picturesquely perform his earlier task for his lord. The way William's eyes roved his revealed torso was so predictable he let out a rumble part chuckle and part growl. His predatory senses were reawakening as he felt his power spreading over the shinigami once more. It didn't take much.   
   
William's neck craned as he leaned down into a crouch but Sebastian dodged his lips, going for the throat, which he kissed with tender passion. His fingers slid over virgin skin and brushed a nipple entirely new to the sensation of another's touch. A strangled sound came from Will, prompting Sebastian to rub harder, drifting into a circular motion that caused Will to crane his head back over Ciel's thigh, his glasses slipping up toward his brow.  
   
Ciel's lips were curved with a sexy little smile. He played with Will's short hair and studied the curve of his neck.  
   
Sebastian let slip a possessive growl and delivered a slight pinch to Will's left nipple. He didn't like at all the interest Ciel displayed in the shinigami. At all other times, his focus was on Sebastian. Even with Soma, Ciel's focus had been more about the Indian prince's devoted attention to Ciel than Ciel's own affection toward his friend.  
   
This was different. From the careful way he had approached William and treated him with gentleness and understanding to the spark of excitement in his eyes as he surveyed the shinigami now, Ciel was displaying a level of attachment that had never before been an issue. His distrust of others, his dislike of touching or being touched, his emotional disconnection... Something about the shinigami encouraged Ciel to overcome those barriers.  
   
Another pinch caused William to gasp, his eyes flaring wide open for a moment, but he quickly schooled his expression, shooting Sebastian a look of disapproval but not voicing his displeasure... or the pleasure that stemmed from it. Ciel watched his face intensely, devouring each subtle flicker of exposition. At the end of the exchange, he took a slow breath in and then expelled it just as cautiously, his eyes trained on William's lips.  
   
Sebastian gritted his teeth as he suddenly seethed with understanding. This was his own doing. Ciel identified with William as a victim of depravity and the shinigami's swift reconciliation and aggressive response appealed to him in ways he hadn't even begun to understand.   
   
Having started this, Sebastian could hardly end it without triggering suspicion and rebellion in Ciel. He had to see it through... and he had to regain Ciel's focus.  
   
*  
   
It was difficult to explain but Ciel had never really looked at William before. He'd never thought of the shinigami as anything but a nuisance getting in the way of his business and putting Sebastian in a bad mood for days on end. His only redeeming quality had been his preference to avoid them altogether unlike that harlot Grell who came looking for trouble on a regular basis.  
   
Yet it seemed to Ciel as if he had been rather blind to the charming innocence and indomitable spirit the shinigami harbored. His green eyes were actually much more mysterious than cold and those pale pink, thin lips that had once struck Ciel as sour were definitely hiding a dry humor. His stiff expressions masked a fear of being emotive that Ciel suddenly realized he understood a little too intimately.  
   
For the first time, he was fascinated not by Sebastian, but by his partner's reactions to his prowess. Where he usually delighted in the discomfort and desperation of those partners, he found himself hoping Will might enjoy Sebastian as a sort of gift from him...  
   
And why shouldn't he gift Sebastian's talents? They were his to command if not to enjoy! Better this intriguing being than a self-absorbed courtier like Ash, a pervert like Druitt, or a mindless dog like Pluto. Ironic as it was considering his unworldly nature, William didn't have the ethereal beauty of those others, or the exotic allure of Soma, yet Ciel found his looks more appealing for their simplicity. Those eyes of his, though... They snagged Ciel's attention at odd moments and he found it hard to look away.  
   
It occurred to Ciel that if they were to take tea together in some alternate universe, they might find they had a lot it common in terms of interests. The name William T. Spears was clearly homage to that of William Shakespeare. Ciel was certain it was not his real name. He wondered which plays Will preferred—the comedies or the tragedies? He suspected the answer was not the former, considering the severe personality the shinigami presented to the world.  
   
As it was, he was now showing admirable self control for someone so new to the kinds of things Sebastian was doing to him. The demon was licking, stroking, and tracing William's revitalized erection with his lips as if in worship. Ciel felt hungry seeing him feast so.  
   
He observed in a partial trance as Sebastian embraced one creamy thigh—thin but with enough soft flesh that the demon's hands made an imprint as they traveled so slowly down. His lips followed, kissing the skin and marking a trail. Now and then his tongue flickered out. Above the knee, his teeth scraped lightly with just the barest hint of threat. From the calf down, William displayed more hair—fine enough that Sebastian's mouth glided over it like a butterfly skimming over soft grass. When he reached the ankle, Sebastian gently turned the foot, rubbing his cheek against the circular bone and his chin along the ridge of the arch.  
   
Like red coals smoldering in the remains of a fire, his eyes glowed up at Ciel and William through curtains of night-stained lashes. At such a slow speed and hyper-tension that the motion alone was saturated with vulgarity, Sebastian's tongue craned toward the wrinkled white skin of William's foot. When it landed, William jolted.  
   
Ciel sympathized. He'd been so caught up in the theatrics that he hadn't realized what was actually happening. It must have been a shock to the system for William to actually feel that devious tongue on his foot. Was he ticklish? Or just sensitive? Either way, his cheeks were flushed with more life than a shinigami ought to be able to claim.  
   
Not holding back a whit, Sebastian licked every inch of skin on the underside of Willian's foot. He then kissed and sucked each toe, letting his lips linger suggestively as they slid around the appendages. All the while, he stared at them both, eyes burning with a strange light.  
   
It wasn't the usual warning or aggression, though. It was something Ciel couldn't recall having seen in his eyes before...but he'd seen it elsewhere. He'd seen it in Pluto, in Ash, in Druitt, in Soma, and he had probably worn it himself. It was subservience; devotion. It was a desire to please and a longing for validation.   
   
It was mesmerizing.  
   
Whenever Sebastian blinked or lowered his gaze to the toes he was lavishing with his saliva, Ciel felt bereft. He had never known how deeply he craved seeing that particular expression in Sebastian's eyes, and now it crippled him with consummation.   
   
"That's enough," Will whimpered, startling Ciel with the reminder of his presence. "This is deplorable. You despicable, disgusting, degenerate drudge! What in the name of heaven and earth do you think you're-"  
   
Ciel shuddered as Sebastian's eyes flashed and he rose in feline mimicry, his back arched and a secretive smile playing about his thinned lips. "Neither in the name of heaven, nor earth," he rasped. "All that I do, I do in the name of hell." He knelt above William and began to remove his disheveled clothes, shedding them like a second skin and revealing the glory of his body anew.  
   
Before he quite realized what he was doing, Ciel had his hands on William's shoulders, rubbing soothingly. He was surprised to find more muscle than skin and bone in Will's arms and chest and found himself exploring the dips and ridges of those surfaces. Will had closed his eyes, his expression long and troubled as if he had finally come to his senses and found the will to resist, but when he opened his eyes the steel in them was pure resolution.   
   
He was through being the victim and he lifted his upper body from the ground, reaching up over Sebastian's shoulder and hauling himself further upright. It brought his face right in to the demon's neck and he followed through with the opportunity, flicking his tongue out to taste the skin, feeling for a pulse with his lips.  
   
Sebastian craned his neck, giving William room, and he smirked at Ciel, softly stroking the tense muscles of Will's shoulder and back. If his attention had been on the shinigami at that moment, Ciel would have missed it, but it wasn't. He saw every machination when Sebastian swayed subtly to the right. Going with the motion, Will felt himself come into power and used the slight momentum to topple Sebastian under his weight, pinning the demon to the floor.  
   
It was palpable, the sense of endowment and control that riveted the shinigami. He hovered over Sebastian, sensing in every fiber of his body the dominance he now exerted.  
   
He was beautiful. If Sebastian was a panther, then William was a leopard; both sleek and elegant, both strong, both cunning. The panther was sly, though, and Ciel had no doubt that he was getting his way even as the leopard thought himself the aggressor.  
   
"What are you waiting for?"  
   
Ciel was surprised to realize the urging came from his own lips. He was snared in Sebastian's trap as inevitably as the unsuspecting Will.  
   
Will's head snapped up to view him, those green eyes trained on him like emerald glaciers. "What a child you are," he breathed. "So devoid of innocence."  
   
For all that he had been called or degraded about, nothing had ever hurt him quite like those words did at that moment.  
   
"Ah, but he is innocent in every way that counts," crooned Sebastian, reaching back and up to cup Ciel's cheeks in both hands. Only belatedly did the earl realize he had bent into that touch without conscious thought.  
   
William may have hurt him, but Sebastian would never let it ruin him. He was the only one Ciel could truly rely on—the only one who would never, ever lie to him.  
   
"What are you waiting for?" he repeated, this time speaking to the demon who was his to command. "Do it."  
   
"Yes, My Lord."  
   
*  
   
William shouted in a fit of momentary ecstasy, surprise, inertia, and fear. The world heaved and warped as Sebastian's inhuman thighs wrapped about his legs and buttocks, sweeping him in even as he angled his own body to receive the thrusting spear that found its mark unnerringly.   
   
The demon's hiss of rapture seared his skin, his face and neck burning with heat even as his loins throbbed. He might have the high ground but the illusion of control was gone, melted and washed away in a torrent of desire. William didn't even have his own thighs or belly under control. Sebastian's every motion pushed, pulled, swayed, and maneuvered in parody of a mutual coupling. It was all William could do to keep his trembling arms from giving out.  
   
For a while, that was true, but soon William found that he was moving of his own volition after all, pounding his hips down and forward into the soft flesh and taut muscle that sheathed him. He might have resented the coercion that had brought them to this point but he was too overwhelmed by the incredible sensation transforming his bodily shell into a vessel of some higher power. It was all he could do not to weep again, or to gasp out gratitude for the experience Sebastian bestowed upon him.  
   
It changed nothing...but for William, it changed everything. The existence he had become so weary of didn't seem so empty anymore. Maybe there was more meaning to be had from eternity than culling soul after miserable, wretched soul.   
   
That was what filled his mind as he spent himself inside Sebastian's body, shuddering in the filthy demon's arms and craning his head into Ciel's small, comforting hand as it stroked his hair once more. He would never forgive them both for defiling him against his will...but for teaching him the joy of intercourse and the inconstancy of the certainties he swore by, he would leave the demon and his ward be until their paths invariably crossed again.  
   
If he often found himself wondering when that might be or thinking on it with the slightest seed of excitement mixed in with his trepidation, he never told another soul.   
   
*  
   
Ciel stared through the window of his coach into the world of night; black darkness and golden light blurred and blended, warped by hard-falling rain, until eventually all was overcome by shadow. Behind the shadows of his eyelids, emerald and crimson jewels warred for his favor. He longed for both and dared reach for neither, especially not the rubies that glowed at his side, alighting on him at all times.  
   
"Ciel."  
   
"Master!" Ciel snapped, whipping to face his butler, uncannily frightened by the uncommon use of his given name.  
   
"Master Ciel," Sebastian whispered.  
   
There was no stopping it even if he wanted to. The world slipped into an alternate dimension.  
   
Those deep, dark rubies closed in on him until they were shuttered. Rose-petal lips brushed against his own and a silken tongue crept between them.   
   
For the first time, Ciel was gifted with the touch he had only ever imagined. Sebastian was gentle, imploring, encouraging, and confidant above all. His kiss kindled a new kind of fire in Ciel, one that burned long after. It wasn't sexy and passionate in the way that might become excruciating when that one kiss proved to be all the concession Ciel was allowed. Instead, it soothed and calmed him, sharpening his focus and reminding him of all he possessed—and all he had yet to achieve.  
   
"You're nothing alike," Sebastian murmured, sliding his thumb across Ciel's lower lip to dry it and caressing the corner of his mouth. "You acknowledge your needs and urges where he has denied them. You're always one step ahead of anyone who would make a victim of you. Even then...even when you summoned me for the first time. You won, My Lord. Never forget that."  
   
"Of course I did," Ciel growled, clearing his throat of whatever emotion seemed to have infested it. "That's enough nonsense. Wake me when we reach the drive."  
   
When Ciel closed his eyes, only the one pair of rubies blinked lazily at him and kept watch as he slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	6. A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angered by the teasing kiss and detrimental effect of continued abstinence after the event on his emotional well-being, Ciel sends Sebastian away. However, matters aren't as simple as "Out of sight, out of mind."
> 
> Vincent/Sebastian (Additional Warnings: fairly heavy BDSM, rough sex)  
> Lau + Ciel  
> Ciel + Pluto

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...Tango on the Campania is a thing that exists...and as a direct restlt, so does this chapter. That is all.

When the darkness dances, no-one can see. There's no trace of swirling ink in a sea of night or rippling black velvet on an obsidian expanse. There is only indistinguishable darkness, dancing dizzily for its own pleasure.

That is, unless the darkness has a face.

From a distance, alabaster skin shines like the light of a firefly, winking in and out of view as the darkness spins and turns. With each leap and slide closer, it begins to coalesce. Stark white skin, gray waistcoat, dusky red lips, burning ruby eyes...

The darkness twirls about him in a dizzying spiral of pirouettes and jumps, leaning back into an arcing kick followed by another turning swipe of the opposite leg. The sequence slows, Sebastian's arms flowing with unequaled grace, his fingertips extended as his arms reach out and around, pulling his body into an elegant turn. Whenever his eyes return to meet his master's, they're afire with determination and greed.

At the last, Sebastian's leg snaps straight, right beside Ciel's ear, the kick passing overhead and falling harmlessly to the floor on the far side of the earl. The motion leads Sebastian into a final turn as he spins down onto one knee. His coat tails snapping, he pulls his arm in tight to his chest and bows his head.

*

Ciel fought bitterly against the urge to rub his eye. His vision was swimming slightly and blinking didn't improve the blur.

Ash watched with a skeptical expression as the earl affixed his seal on the envelope containing his reply to the queen. In response, Ciel brusqly extended the letter, biting back a yawn that would have left him mortified.

"Will that be all, my young Earl of Phantomhive?" asked the gleaming white butler.

It would have seemed a strange question from any other messenger but Ciel was well aware of what Ash had been hoping for. He leaned his chin on his hand and stared Ash down.

"Sebastian isn't even here," he drawled candidly.

"My, how brave you are to be without your loyal bodyguard, considering what happened the last time he was absent..."

"I sent him on a diplomatic errand in my stead," Ciel responded sourly.

He had intended the trip to Soma's homeland to be a punishment for the butler, who was to play the part of the Earl of Phantomhive and accompany the prince in securing a contract for certain spices and herbs to be used in Funtom's recipes. Sebastian was also to investigate anyone who was aware that he was not, in fact, the current earl. Anyone who recognized him as an imposter was potentially a spy for a new rival company that had begun producing Middle-Eastern treats. Several attempts at sabotage had been made against Funtom's products with one galling success resulting in the deaths of two six year old girls celebrating the birthday of a pet rabbit with a tea party.

The punishment was that Sebastian was to present the merchant they sought to entreaty with a gift—a bloodhound of impeccable breeding. To ensure that the gift arrived to its new master in fine condition, Sebastian was to see to its needs throughout the voyage; in other words, feed, bathe, walk...and pamper it. Ciel was insistent on that last point. If the hound suffered emotional neglect and arrived at its new home dispirited and mournful, the merchant—who was known to be a canine enthusiast—would be offended.

As it was, Ciel found himself suffering terribly through the separation. One order and Sebastian would return to him with all haste but that would be a defeat more humiliating than any he had yet faced. Thus, Ciel was plagued with dreams that left him lonelier and more afraid of his desires than he had ever been before.

Hastilly, Ciel dismissed Ash and then took the liberty of Sebastian's absence to put his head down on his arms atop the desk and supplement with a brief nap.

*

There's a hand on his shoulder, a nostalgic voice emanating from the shadows.

"Watch closely, Ciel."

The darkness twirls about the boy in a dizzying spiral of pirouettes and jumps. The demon hurtles through a wild barrel turn, leaning back into an arcing kick followed by another turning swipe of the opposite leg. The sequence slows as he sweeps into an arabesque that seems to float, his toes pushing off of the surface. Sebastian's limbs flow with unequaled grace, his fingertips extended as his arms reach out and around, pulling his body into an elegant turn. Whenever his eyes return to meet his master's, they're afire with determination and greed. He falls into a lunge, arms hanging low and swaying until he rises with a rolling tide as though a wave is pushing him upright. Every line and curve his figure assumes amounts to unspeakable perfection.

At the last, Sebastian bends his knee up slowly, balanced impecably on one foot. His leg snaps straight, extending right past Ciel's ear with an audible swish. Without any break in the grace of the motion, the kick slows again, passing overhead and falling harmlessly to the floor on the far side of the earl.

"Ya, Earl."

Startled, Ciel snapped upright, his eyes stinging with the rush of air and sudden exposure to the bright, early afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows.

"Lau!" He stared at the Chinese man in blatant surprise, still dragging one foot out of the realm of dreams. "What are you doing here?"

"Can't a friend pay a visit? Or must I make an appointment?"

"No, of course not," Ciel responded earnestly before he remembered to put his usual walls back in place.

"Good," said Lau, curiously neglecting to take advantage of the opening. "Because it would appear there's no-one to make an appointment with now that you've sent away your butler. Ah, poor Sebastian, wandering desolate at the ends of the Earth in that godforsaken colony..."

"India is not godforsaken. That's the whole point of-"

"India? And here I thought he was headed to Australia. Pray tell, what business might you have in India?"

Ciel should know better by now than to feed Lau facts and corrections. With a sigh, he decided he may as well get the interrogation over with. "You heard about the poisonings, I presume."

"That poor, defenseless bunny rabbit," Lau mourned, citing the third and—in Ciel's eyes—least consequential victim.

"Well, it's related to that. He'll be gone for a few weeks, at least."

"Ah, that explains the air of loneliness all throughout your wide mansion. Not to mention the dust on the banisters and shards of broken pottery, the wilting flowers, and the scent of charcoal wafting from the kitchens...but most noticeably, the melancholy in this room."

As Lau spoke, he slid low in the chair he had occupied and one bare foot found its way to Ciel's knee. He inched his toes higher, exhibiting surprising grip strength, and began to use his agile foot to massage Ciel's crotch.

Wooden with discomfort, Ciel managed only a terse command. "Don't, Lau."

"Why ever not? You seem to be receptive."

Lau was referring, of course, to the rising interest of Ciel's body, an effect set in motion by the dream that still haunted his thoughts. Ciel found himself surprisingly tempted to inch forward in his seat and let Lau wipe the dream from his mind, but it wasn't that simple.

"I made a promise," he reminded himself.

"My, aren't we the faithful one?"

"It's not what you're thinking...but a promise is a promise," Ciel affirmed. He reached down and pushed Lau's foot away, turning his face aside to avoid eye contact lest his warming skin break out in a humiliating blush. "If we're friends, you'll respect that," he tendered.

"Ah, you drive a hard bargain, Earl," complained Lau, wistfully. "Perhaps you'll assuage my curiosity at the least. What ties the deaths of innocent children to India and requires the attention of the butler to the Phantomhive household?"

"Not the butler," Ciel corrected. "The earl."

He went on to explain some of the plan without delving into too much detail. Lau was a good audience, at least, making all the right sounds at the right times, whether of admiration or shock.

When Ciel was through, he appeared thoughtful. "From what I've heard, Sebastian could have passed for your father, the former earl, with little suspicion. Anyone who has been at court here would know your story, though. It could work."

Ciel had stopped listening at the comparison. "Don't be absurd," he spluttered. "A lowly servant like Sebastian could never hold a candle to a noble like my father."

Inside, he was shaking. As much as he wanted that to be true, he knew the demon's elegance and arrogance were in a league of their own. And yet...

And yet...

"Watch closely, Ciel."

"What?" His voice shook as he studied Lau in horrified confusion.

"Hmmm? I said, 'If you say so, Earl.' Is something the matter?"

"No. Leave me."

"Very well. As obvious as it is that you're lying, I'd rather not lie about in the lap of temptation, but do call on me when your dear butler returns. I think I'm due a turn, don't you?"

*

When the darkness dances, no-one can see. There's no trace of swirling ink in a sea of night or rippling black velvet on an obsidian expanse. There is only indistinguishable darkness, dancing dizzily for its own pleasure.

That is, unless the darkness has a face; a face formed of a coalition of memories and ideals.

From a distance, alabaster skin shines like the light of a firefly, winking in and out of view as the darkness spins and turns. With each leap and slide closer, it begins to coalesce. Stark white skin, charcoal-stained hair, gray waistcoat, dusky lips, glinting hazel eyes... No, red—red as rubies and alight with a malignant inner fire.

The demon in the darkness twirls around the boy in a dizzying storm of pirouettes and jumps. He hurtles through a wild barrel turn, leaning back into an arcing kick followed by another turning swipe of the opposite leg as if frantically striking out at an unseen opponent—a nightmare even to him.

The sequence slows as Sebastian sweeps into an arabesque and the contrast to the earlier rapidity of his motion seems to make time itself halt, giving the illusion that he is floating when his toes push off of the concrete surface of the subteranean dungeon. His limbs flow with unequaled grace as he flings them wide like a man at crucifiction. His fingertips complete the extension as his arms reach out and around, pulling his body into an elegant corkscrew. Whenever his eyes return to meet his master's, they're afire with determination, greed, and a strange, wary amusement.

He falls into a lunge, his arms hanging low and swaying until he rises with a rolling tide as though a wave is pushing him upright. He moves as if at the command of another who has dominion over his very joints and sinews.

Every line and curve his figure assumes amounts to unspeakable perfection. Every contraction jerks achingly at the human soul.

At the last, Sebastian bends his knee up slowly, balanced impecably on one foot. His leg snaps straight, extending right past Ciel's ear with an audible swish. Without any break in the grace of the motion, the kick slows again, passing overhead and falling harmlessly to the floor on the far side of the earl.

The motion leads Sebastian into a final turn as he spins down onto one knee, his coat tails snapping. He pulls his arm in tight to his chest and bows his head. There is a hand on his shoulder, fading away into the darkness where Ciel cannot make out who it belongs to.

"Watch closely, Ciel."

He knows the voice. It pulls him wholly into the dream.

*

"Watch closely, Ciel."

Vincent's fingers trailed down Sebastian's cheek in a parody of adoration. The demon's arms hung limply at his sides. His knees were bent beneath him, shins aligned with the floor. His thighs were raised and locked, holding him seated upright on thin air. Only his eyes moved to follow Vincent when the man walked away to take a long riding crop from the wall.

Once pristinely pressed, washed to spotless perfection, and buttoned with ideal modesty, Sebastian's waist coat and shirt hung open, shredded in places and dyed unevenly with patches of scarlet blood. He jerked as the crop hit his flesh once, twice, and then scraped downward on the third strike, eliciting an involuntary hiss.

"See how he yearns for the kiss of pain? I give this to him and so he desires it. That is what it means to own a creature, Ciel."

He's not yours. He's mine.

However much he wanted to speak out, Ciel's voice was sealed. He swallowed heavily and tried to fight off the arousal that swept him at the sight of Sebastian so lovingly and artfully defaced.

The demon's eyes followed him when he crashed heavily to his knees, arms wrapped tightly around his own small frame. Sebastian's chin lowered slightly and his eyes flashed. His back straightened and he turned his palms outward, braced for another whack from the riding crop. When it hit, his lips spread in a thin grin, parted just slightly to emit a hiss of breath.

"Stand."

It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. Sebastian should not respond to any order but his own, yet the demon immediately did as he was told, planting first one foot and then pushing up to his knee and following with the other leg. He stood slowly, keeping his balance even with his palms still held outward.

He tilted his neck back, gazing at Ciel over charcoal-gray hair as Vincent bent to lick the shallow pools of welling blood from his chest. His jaw dropped and he breathed out a sound somewhere between ecstacy and agony. Ciel could imagine his father's tongue worrying at ripped webs of flesh, licking away the rent upper layer of skin.

That skin was Ciel's to lick off!

A shudder of revulsion hit him and Ciel momentarily remembered he was dreaming. How could he imagine such a thing, even in the darkest depths of his subconsious?

Yet, there was more to come, and he knew he wanted to see it, even if it disturbed him throughout the very core of his soul. He wanted to see his father bring Sebastian to heel. He wanted to watch Vincent-

The moment it occurred to him, the dream acted upon his desire. He was no longer in the scene. There was only Vincent pushing Sebastian's naked thighs back further as he increased the rate and strength of his thrusts.

Tattered and bloodied shirt falling open around him, Sebastian grazed back and forth on the concrete, scrabbling futilely for purchase with his clawed black nails.

"Watch closely, Ciel," Vincent growled, letting Sebastian's legs fall as he surged forward, his belly sliding against bruised and laticed abs that rippled with contractions part pain and part pleasure.

Sebastian moaned, almost howled, rocking his own body to compensate for Vincent's pause. His voice rang with intense longing, angry frustration, and desperate humiliation. It was the most raw and beautiful thing Ciel had ever heard.

Vincent's fingers pushed the bangs back from Sebastian's forehead, sliding into his hair. He kept that grip, holding Sebastian down to the cocrete by the head, and began viciously driving his hips, thrusting himself into the demon with the reverberation of slapping skin ringing all around them.

The panting moans Sebastian made were weak for shortage of breath as Vincent's belly beat against his own, driving the wind out of him. His orgasm was signified by a twitching cramping of the feet and craning arch of the rib cage...

Ciel awoke in a cold sweat, shddering as his dream-induced climax subsided. His sheets were damp with sweat and his nightwear felt moist and sticky around the groin.

He wiped at his face with little show of coordination, doing hardly more than spreading the sweat. A moment later, he shivered.

If Sebastian were there, he would have a bath drawn and the bedding replaced, but Ciel couldn't allow anyone to witness his shame, especially not the household staff who looked up to him. Better that he heave the quilt up and flip it over, tucking it about himself and curling into a huddle to alleviate the chill.

*

Tidying up the young master's bedroom, Mey-rin became worried when she found bedding that reeked of sweat. Removing her glasses, she examined the covers, looking for any further signs of illness. What she found explained the sweat and made her blush. Still, she resolved to keep a close eye on the master in Sebastian's absence. Tanaka might look after Ciel's daily needs such as dressing and serving, but his eyes were no longer sharp enough to notice the young master's less mundane issues. Sometimes there were jobs only a woman could handle.

*

The afternoon was warm and sleep-deprived Ciel was hard-pressed to stay awake from the moment he sat down on a heated stone bench during his walk in the gardens. The point had been to keep himself awake with exercize but the sunshine seemed to fill him with lethargy instead.

He was just nodding off when Mey-rin rounded a hedge with Pluto, who immediately bounded for his master and leapt up on the bench, licking Ciel's face. It was a startlement and a welcome awakening but Ciel was not pleased to be slathered in Saliva.

The maid was aghast, spluttering and moaning, but the dog ignored her, calmly transforming into human form and resting his pale head in Ciel's lap. Despite his resentment of the unsolicited face wash, Ciel slowly lowered one hand to white hair and stroked it softly. The other wiped spittle from his face and transferred it to the lilly white skin of a bare waist.

Pluto made a noise of contentment, his tongue flicking out to swipe Ciel's knee in approval. Mey-rin fainted.

Sighing, Ciel continued to stroke Pluto's hair, no longer sleepy and thus content to sit a while longer. At least, until the maid came to and took the dog off his hands.

On a whim, he decided to let Pluto sleep in his bed for a change. Maybe his presence would ward off the dreams.

*

"Watch closely, Ciel."

The cracking sound came again and again, occasionally accompanied by a hiss or a grunt, and then more commonly by a short cry. At first, Sebastian had stood firm, taking each lash of the whip in silent consternation, but little by little his resistance crumbled.

Ciel watched in horrified fascination as the snake-like leather descended in an arc. He couldn't see the impact as Sebastian was displayed head-on before him, but he could identify the exact moment. Hanging limply from cuffs chaining his wrists together over-head, his knees dragging and his torso elongated, Sebastian shuddered horribly. His eyes flashed even as agonized contractions caused his belly to contort and his thighs to spasm. Sometimes it was his neck and shoulders that strained, sometimes his whole body seized. Ciel wondered whether his father calculated the blows to stimulate one portion of the body or another.

Silently, Ciel willed Sebastian to fight back, to break free. He could order it, if he could just find his tongue.

As he continued to stare in silence, Sebastian's lips thinned into a smile. It wavered slightly as his shoulders stiffened and he tried to straighten his knees to alleviate the pain but his legs trembled and collapsed, causing him to hang even more precariously, his shoulders pulled up and shuddering with strain.

Vincent appeared over his left shoulder, then, his hands sliding around sensitive flesh and planting; one on the hip bone, another under the rib cage. As his body pressed close, Sebastian's eyes fluttered in relief to have some of his weight carried by the body hugging his own. He straightened slightly and lowered his chin minutely, meeting Ciel's gaze more firmly.

Vincen'ts knee pressed between Sebastian's legs and Ciel's eyes drifted. The demon's thighs parted as the knee came up.

"Open yourself to me, demon."

Panic flared for just a second in Sebastian's eyes as he struggled to find a way to comply. Panting, he leaned back against Vincent's form. His eyes on Ciel, he uttered, "Yes, my Lord," and widened the angle of his thighs.

Vincent's grip shifted and Sebastian's expression melted with gladness as he was impaled and consequently lifted. Whatever pain the rough handling produced paled in comparison to the relief of strain from the wrists down. The effect of Vincent's adjustment and subsequent initial thrusts was lost in a euphoric rolling of shoulders and realignment of arms. By the time he seemed to become aware of the pounding he was taking, Sebastian was already enjoying it. He leaned his neck back so that his head rested in the crook of Vincent's shoulder and let his mouth hang open, focusing on the pleasurable stimulation to his sweet spot rather than the stings and burns that plagued his abused muscles and chaffed wrists.

In Ciel's eyes, he was even more beautiful than ever, and that observation brought with it a shiver of dread. He might have woken if not for the distracting tingle in his groin.

"Are you paying attention, Ciel?"

The young heir nodded faintly, feeling smooth warmth against his cheek as he did and drawing comfort from it. He boldly raked his eyes over Sebastian's naked figure.

No longer chained, the demon reached back, hooking his arm around Vincent's neck behind him and sliding his body sinuously against Ciel's father's. Sebastian's hips wavered as Vincent drove into him, working to a steady rhythm as the two men of similar height and build balanced and counterbalanced one another.

"Watch closely," moaned Sebastian.

With nails almost as claw-like as the demon's, Vincent raked a long set of furrows from Sebastian's left hip to the right side of his waist. Panting, Sebastian draped his weight against his lover and absorbed the rush of pain as if it were as delicious as it was vicious.

Standing at full attention, his erection bobbed and twitched, and when Vincent's long, sharp nails drew blood from his tonge even as he licked them clean, he arched and jolted, spurting a fountain of semen, a glob of which hit Ciel's cheek.

He opened his eyes, spasming in the surprising throes of his own orgasm, and immediately winked to avoid a wet eyeball from the tongue swiping his face.

For a moment, in the wake of surpassing pleasure, he struggled with the cold, steel grip of panic. Then, he pushed away from the body wrapped about his smaller form and opened his eyes again to confirm what logic calmly whispered to him.

"Pluto."

In bed with him in dog form while he had begun to dream, Pluto had transformed and instinctively responded to Ciel's alluring heat and lustful motions. Ciel had somehow been vaguely aware of him, even while caught up in the dream.

He ought to be furious. The rational reaction would be to kick the horny mutt out of his bed. Yet, Ciel was comforted by the presence of a body he had grown comfortable with and a mentality he trusted. While Pluto might not always act with the predictability of a logical human, his selfish urges were tempered only by the commands of his master—both spoken and intuited. Already, he had taken note of Ciel's withdrawal and the stiff signs of fear in his master's body.

Tucking his hands under his chin, he lay flat, and watched and waited, his eyes riveted to Ciel's tiniest move. He blinked.

"Come here, boy."

Joyously, Pluto flung himself into his master's outstretched arms, burrowing against a tiny chest and settling instantly. His happy sighs of contentment lulled Ciel to a less troubled sleep.

*

"Watch closely, my Lord."

Layer by meticulous, fussy layer, Sebastian removed his clothes. His eyes were trained upon Ciel's the entire time but he didn't make a show of it. He carefully folded and placed each garment in a neat pile until he stood before Ciel in his unblemished glory.

"He's gone, as you well know, but I am here. What is your will? You can bind me, beat me, blind me, burn me, do as you like. I am yours to command."

"Come here, Sebastian," Ciel whispered, spreading his arms.

Doing as he was told, the butler climbed onto the bed and settled into Ciel's outstretched arms. He stared straight into his master's eyes.

"Yes, my Lord," he murmured in response to the unspoken demand.

Raising Ciel's chin on his fingers, he held the boy's blue gaze as he positioned his hips and then lowered himself gently into place. Eyes locked, he rode his master dutifully and unendingly.

It was strangely unerotic, Ciel realized after a time. What dominated his senses was not physical gratification but emotional satisfaction. It continued for what seemed like hours until, for the first time in years, Ciel awoke with tears in his eyes.

Absently, he pet the white hair spread across his chest and noted that Pluto was heavily asleep and would not be easily dislodged. He lay there for some time before the words slipped unbidden from his lips.

"Sebastian, I order you to come home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, Arayan.   
> I mean Lau.   
> ...Pay me no mind.


End file.
